Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964)

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a three part sculpture of a machine with a collage of a female ointment up and a machine

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964)

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a machine on a hot pink background

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

section of a wall based sculpture with collage and a machine

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

section of a wall based sculpture with collage and a machine

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

section of a wall based sculpture with collage and a machine

Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964) [detail]

Plexiglass, metal, acrylic paint, photographs, and rectifier tube on wood

40 x 11 x 4 in. (101.6 x 28 x 10.1 cm)

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

1964—1966

The Machine Taking a Wife

Robert Smithson
1964
Plexiglass, machine parts, steel, and mirrors on wood
18 x 26 x 1 in. (45.7 x 66 x 2.5 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

In The Machine Taking a Wife, Robert Smithson expands his use of collage into sculpture. A green-tinged image of an industrial machine sits above a similarly tinted image of a female pinup, framed in a hot pink outline, the two linked by a  rectifier tube - a vacuum tube diode that converts alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) in electronic equipment. Like the assemblage Honeymoon Machine from the same year, this wall-based sculpture draws on Smithson’s early erotic cartouches and the critical legacy of Marcel Duchamp. It nods in form and title to Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23), likewise presenting an industrialized erotic charge. Lightning bolts and the pinup motif, familiar from the drawings, appear here, although Smithson more often drew on male soft-core imagery in these early works.

Related Info

1964—1966
a wall sculpture with bright neon colors and machine parts interacting with a cutout image of a woman
Honeymoon Machine
Robert Smithson
1964
1964—1966

A photograph of a pin-up girl, her nipples connected via wire to a rudimentary electrical circuit, swoons against a hot pink background encased in plexiglass. This boldly lurid sculpture seems a far cry from Smithson’s renowned earthworks. Indeed, this aspect of Smithson’s artistic production is not often included in the dialogue surrounding his oeuvre, yet its vivid transgressions and outspoken social commentary demand recognition.

1964—1966
a wall based sculpture with an eye at the center
Radio Cyclops
Robert Smithson
1964
1964—1966

In Radio Cyclops (1964), a wide-open eye occupies the center, linked via a circuit to a hot pink band of color. When looking at the sculpture, one sees one’s own eyes looking back, reflected and refracted in the mirrored surfaces. Made at a time when Smithson was experimenting with plastics and developing ideas from his collages, this wall-based sculpture incorporates Plexiglass, polished blue steel, and mirrors on a wooden support.

See Also