Robert Smithson and Lawrence Weiner at ADAA The Art Show New York

Marian Goodman Gallery are currently exhibiting works by Robert Smithson and Lawrence Weiner in the ADAA Art Show New York at the Park Avenue Armory.

Lawrence Weiner (b. 1942) and Robert Smithson (b. 1938-d.1973) are two artists who consistently have rethought the limits of art, asking questions that are profoundly urgent for our times. At The Art Show, Marian Goodman is proud to present a unique pairing of these two artists who have built the ground from which contemporary art has grown.

From his landmark earthworks to his quasi-minimalist sculptures, Nonsites, writings, proposals, collages, detailed drawings and engagement with entropy, Smithson explored the conceptual and physical boundaries of landscape. Since the 1960s Weiner has used language as a sculptural medium, underlining the fundamental importance of encounter, time, and space in art and demonstrating its power to reframe perception and reveal power structures. Formed from language, his structures consisting of text, and sometimes accompanied by gestures and punctuation marks, have been exhibited around the world and interpreted into numerous languages.

Both artists share an interest in the imponderables of time, space, and language. In addition to celebrating the mutual respect these two pioneer artists had for one another, this special presentation focuses on their common interest in the sea.

For Smithson, islands were speculative sites showing the constantly changing surface of our planet and the limits of human knowledge. Smithson’s imagined islands sit alongside a work suggested by Weiner: TAR + HIGH WATER (+) (-) TAR + LOW WATER, 1994 (presented here in English and Flemish) and points to Smithson’s only extant earthwork in Europe, located in the Netherlands, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971), which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. In addition, Smithson was fascinated by the reclaimed nature of the Dutch landscape—as shown in his island meanders drawings, and Weiner, who has kept a houseboat in Amsterdam for decades and exhibited widely in the Netherlands, was drawn to the “productive point of unrest” he saw as typifying that city.

Find Smithson and Weiner's work at Marian Goodman Gallery's booth B1 through November 7, 2021.

Robert Smithson, Forking Island (1971)

Paint and marker on mirror

12 x 12 in. (30.5 x 30.5 cm)
 

© Holt/Smithson Foundation, licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Archived News

Nancy Holt's Starfire acquired by Powder Art Foundation

We are very pleased to share Nancy Holt’s 1986 sculpture "Starfire" has found a permanent home in the collection of Powder Art Foundation in Eden, Utah. Powder Art Foundation is an outdoor art museum that works closely with Dia Art Foundation. "Starfire" comprises eight pits arranged to mirror the Big Dipper constellation and the North Star. The flames create a terrestrial map of the night sky, bringing the energy of distant stars down to earth.

Holt artworks in "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Light was a constant source of fascination for Nancy Holt throughout her four decades of artmaking. Whether drawn from the stars or powered by electricity, she approached light as a phenomenon, an idea, and a material in itself. Three of her pivotal works investigating the perceptual qualities of light are featured in the exhibition "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany.

Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson

In 1968 Robert Smithson declared: “A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance.” On show until January 20, "Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson" at Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles takes him at his word and invites eighteen artists to join Smithson on the floor as partners who resist, improvise, and extend the rhythm of his thinking.

Holt's "Locators with Loci" on view in "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce

Nancy Holt's 1972 sculpture "Locators with Loci" is on view in the exhibition "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris until January 18, 2026. Curated by Jessica Morgan, Director of Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition traces the scope Minimal Arr through over a hundred works by some forty international artists.

Joan Jonas: An Island Departure at the Farnsworth Art Museum

"Joan Jonas: An Island Departure, with Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson"  is currently on show at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine through to March 1, 2026. This special collaboration is part of our on-ongoing series of projects with artists working today.

Robert Smithson in Europe at Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany

"Robert Smithson in Europe" is currently on show at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop,  Germany, until February 22, 2026. The exhibition brings together Robert Smithson’s artistic production in the Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, and Germany, with a special focus on North Rhine-Westphalia, the region local to the city of Bottrop.