2021 Research Fellows: Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt

We are pleased to announce the final fellowship awardees in our 2021 Holt/Smithson Foundation Research Fellowship season: Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt.

Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt will collaborate on a Research Fellowship focused on Robert Smithson’s 1968 work Asphalt Lump and his related work made in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany. 

Markus is an artist and curator. He is Professor for Fine Art Ceramics at the Institute for Ceramic and Glass Art (IKKG), University of Applied Sciences Koblenz. Eva Schmidt is an art theorist and curator. From 2004 to 2019 she was head of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, and previously Director of the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen. In 2000 Eva (with Kai Voeckler) edited of the German translation of The Writings of Robert Smithson. 

Our Research Fellowships aim to encourage new research on the work, ideas, and creative legacies of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. We look forward to thinking with Markus and Eva to expand and develop critical research on Smithson.

Robert Smithson, Asphalt Lump (1968)
From Indifferent Matter: From Object to Sculpture (25 July – 20 October 2013) at the Henry Moore Institute,
Leeds
8 x 35 x 26 inches (20 x 90 x 66 cm)
Shown alongside a collection of chipped flint known as eoliths from Leeds Museums and Galleries Collection.
Photo: Jerry Hardman-Jones

Image courtesy Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Archived News

From Dawn till Dusk 2025

We are proud to partner with Land Art Lives, in collaboration with Land Art Contemporary, Land Arts of the American West, to present the second edition of a special livestream conversation between two iconic earthworks by Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty (1970) and Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971). 

Chapter Eight of Tuesday Texts

We are happy to announce that throughout August we are publishing the eighth chapter of our Tuesday Text Series as part of our ongoing Scholarly Text Program, which invites thinkers to focus on a single artwork by Holt and/or Smithson. 

Every Tuesday will be publishing a new essay or selecting an essay first published in 2019 on our website, which all include images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation reference, and endnotes pointing to the author’s references.