Mirror Displacement: Indoors (Tree from Langenfeld, Germany)

Robert Smithson
1969
Created for Prospect 69 at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
Tree, mirrors
Dimensions variable, tree is approximately 20 feet long

Robert Smithson created Mirror Displacement: Indoors (Tree from Langenfeld, Germany)  in 1969 at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf for Prospect 69, an exhibition that was co-curated by Hans Strelow and Konrad Fischer. The tree used to create the installation was most likely a pear tree, and it was sourced from Langenfeld, Germany by Smithson and the artist Klaus Rinke. Smithson directed the installation of the tree and the work was destroyed after the exhibition according to his instructions.

Subsequent presentations that have taken place posthumously are constructed on site using locally sourced materials each presentation of the work. A recently felled tree is positioned horizontally inside a gallery space and mirrors are then placed throughout the roots, trunk, and branches of the tree, creating a visually complex doubling effect as viewers move around the sculpture. Until 2021 this work was commonly referred to as Dead Tree—however, in 2021 the Foundation discovered a photograph of the 1969 presentation of the work which has inscribed on the back, in Smithson’s handwriting, the title Mirror Displacement: Indoors (Tree from Langenfeld, Germany) .

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