In 2021, Marian Goodman Gallery London and Holt/Smithson Foundation presented Robert Smithson: Hypothetical Islands, on view from December 2, 2020, to January 9, 2021.
Hypothetical Islands focused on Smithson’s enduring interest in islands. It presented over fifty works spanning 1961 to 1973, many of which were exhibited for the first time in decades. For Smithson, islands were speculative sites that showed the constantly changing surface of our world and the limits of human knowledge. Some of his islands were locations for sculptural invention, while others were sites investigating the formation of landscape through earthworks and sculptures. The selection of works moved from mobile to spiral islands, through forking jetties, meanders, concrete seas, and rising volcanoes. Smithson’s conceptual islands explore time, limits, scale, and human collaboration with geology.
Click here to view an Online Viewing Room presented by Marian Goodman Gallery.
Hypothetical Islands was organized by Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation, and Philipp Kaiser, Chief Executive Director of Artists and Programs at Marian Goodman Galleries. In February 2020, Holt/Smithson Foundation and Marian Goodman Gallery announced their partnership. The partnership between Holt/Smithson Foundation and Marian Goodman Gallery marked a return. In 1965, Marian Goodman was a founder of Multiples, Inc., a landmark project publishing prints, multiples, and books by leading American artists, including Robert Smithson. An exhibition dedicated to Multiples, Inc. launched at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, in January 2021.
Exhibition Reviews
Beth Williamson on Hypothetical Islands in Studio International
Nathan Jones on Hypothetical Islands in SNAP Editions
Hettie Judah on Hypothetical Islands in The Guardian
Image:
Robert Smithson, Island Project (1970)
Graphite on paper
19 x 24 in. (48.3 x 61 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
