Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Sand-Box Monument, also called The Desert) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of a sandbox with a playground in the backgroud

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Sand-Box Monument, also called The Desert) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Great Pipe Monument) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of a large metal pipe next to a body of water and landscape in the background

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Great Pipe Monument) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Fountain Monument – Side View) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of several pipe jutting out of an earthen bank and dumping water into a body of water

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Fountain Monument – Side View) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Bridge Monument Showing Wooden Sidewalks) (1967) Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of a wooden walkway on a metal truss bridge with trees in the background

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Bridge Monument Showing Wooden Sidewalks) (1967) Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (Monument with Pontoons: The Pumping Derrick) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of pontoons and a pumping derrick in a body of water with trees in the background and railroad in the foreground

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (Monument with Pontoons: The Pumping Derrick) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Fountain Monument: Bird’s Eye View) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

black and white image of six metal tubes jutting out of an earthen bank dumping water into a body of water. top down view

Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (The Fountain Monument: Bird’s Eye View) (1967)
Originally published in Artforum, December, 1967
Photograph: Robert Smithson

Photo and Slideworks

The Monuments of Passaic

Robert Smithson

1967

Passaic, NJ, USA

Six photographs of unremarkable industrial landscapes in Passaic, New Jersey depict evidence of man-made history, yet the title of “monument” seems ironic. Stripped of any apparent artistic agenda, the images appear photojournalistic—without an accompanying news article to inform our perception. Smithson was perpetually intrigued by suburbia; in its sameness he saw a version of eternity defined by formal repetition rather than temporal longevity. By framing the mundane sites as “monuments,” Smithson challenges the conceptions of aesthetic merit and historical significance. Monuments of Passaic exists as three manifestations: a published article in Artforum, a photowork, and a photographic series.

Writing

Writing by Robert Smithson

Magazine layout with title on top, text on left, and image on right. All black and white.

The Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey

Robert Smithson

He laughed softly. I know. There’s no way out. Not through the Barrier. Maybe that isn’t what I want, after all. But this—this—’ He stared at the Monument. ‘It seems all wrong sometimes. I just can’t explain it. It’s the whole city. It makes me feel haywire. Then I get these flashes—’

—Henry Kuttner, Jesting Pilot

. . . today our unsophisticated cameras record in their own way our hastily assembled and painted world.

—Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

On Saturday, September 30, 1967, I went to the Port Authority Building on 41st Street and 8th Avenue. I bought a copy of the New York Times and a Signet paperback called Earthworks by Brian W. Aldiss. Next I went to ticket booth 21 and purchased a one-way ticket to Passaic. After that I went up to the upper bus level (platform 173) and boarded the number 30 bus of the Inter-City Transportation Co.

Smithson, Robert. Originally published as "The Monuments of Passaic." Artforum Vol.6, No.4 (December, 1967).

“I am convinced that the future is lost somewhere in the dumps of the non-historical past; it is in yesterday’s news-papers, in the jejune advertisements of science-fiction movies, in the false mirror of our rejected dreams. Time turns metaphors into things, and stacks them up in cold rooms, or places them in the celestial playgrounds of the suburbs.”

Robert Smithson

Smithson, Robert. "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey." Originally published as "The Monuments of Passaic." Artforum 6, no.4 (December, 1967).