drawing of mandala of arms spiraling out from a central red circle

Robert Smithson Drawings in Paris

On October 19, 2022 the Palais de Tokyo and Lafayette Anticipations present the two-part exhibition Humpty \ Dumpty, a project by artist Cyprien Gaillard.

Across two sites, Gaillard offers a reflection upon time—its traces, its effects, and the relationships that humans form with it. Inspired by the current moment where Paris is restoring its most prestigious monuments whilst erasing marks of wear and tear in preparation for the Olympic Games, Gaillard reveals how the city acts a privileged terrain for the expression of entropy and how, in turn, humans seem compelled to fight against this process.

In Humpty \ Dumpty at Palais de Tokyo, Gaillard has made a careful selection of fifteen Robert Smithson drawings from the Foundation’s collection, which he made between 1960 and 1963. Rarely seen, this selection of works on paper reveals his enduring concerns with entropy.

In 1972 Smithson described these as being “phantasmagorical drawings of cosmological worlds somewhat between Blake and a kind of Boschian imagery.” These drawings show Smithson’s roots, his ideas in progress; they are a raw, unfettered analysis of the idea of modernism and systems of knowledge. There are trees, spirals, forking paths, language, pulsating forms stretching beyond arboreal and human bodies, knots of limbs, and Smithson chose titles such as Chaos, Disease, Devil, and Usury for these exploratory works.

See more of the works in the exhibition here.

Robert Smithson, Untitled (1961)
Pencil and watercolor on paper
12 5/8 x 14 7/8 in. (32.1 x 37.8 cm)
Courtesy Holt/Smithson Foundation and Marian Goodman Gallery
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Archived News

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Chapter Nine of Tuesday Texts

Throughout February 2026, we are publishing the ninth 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. Developed as a tool for researchers at all stages, the Scholarly Text Program aims to publish two essays on each work, presenting differing opinions and approaches and drawing connections to topics that range from geology and ecology to poetry, architecture, public art, sculpture, drawing, film, philosophy, site, and

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"Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles

What does it mean to notice how we see? "Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center at the Schindler House in Los Angeles offers an encounter where art and architecture shape perception together. This exhibition to brings Holt’s work into a responsive dialogue with the Schindler House, inviting visitors to experience art and architecture as partners in seeing.

a short typewritten text within a circle, with Nancy Holt's signature in the bottom right corner

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Nancy Holt started making art in 1966, and her first works took the form of concrete poems: artworks testing the structure, content, and form of language. A key concrete poem, "The World Though a Circle," from 1972 is currently on show in the exhibition Deep Fields at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris until March 23, 2026.