Robert Smithson's Dead Tree in a white gallery space

Robert Smithson works in "The Power of Wonder" at Museum unter Tage in Bochum, Germany

Works by Robert Smithson will be included in the group exhibition The Power of Wonder: New Materialisms in Contemporary Art at Museum unter Tage in Bochum, Germany. 

Two artworks that Robert Smithson originally made during his time in Germany in 1969 will be on view in the exhibition: Mirror Displacement: Indoors (1969) and Essen Earth  and Mirrors (for Bernd and Hilla Becher) (1969).

The Power of Wonder considers artworks in which the formative forces of the material are essential in the creation of the artwork. Rather than focusing on humankind as an organizing force, the material itself exerts an active agency. Seemingly inanimate materials such as rocks lead their own independent existence. They combine with other organic and inorganic things such as plants, fungi, or humans to form temporary networks. Artworks by the following artists are included in The Power of Wonder: Ilana Halperin, Agata Ingarden, David Jablonowski, Markus Kastieß, SUPERFLEX, and Robert Smithson.

Learn more about the exhibition on our website here and on the Museum unter Tage website here.

Robert Smithson, Mirror Displacement: Indoors (Tree from Langenfeld, Germany) (1969) [destroyed]

Created for Prospect 69 at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany

Tree, mirrors

Archived News

Nancy Holt's Electrical System Prototype

Nancy Holt: Circles of Light at Gropius Bau, Berlin

Holt/Smithson Foundation and Gropius Bau are pleased to announce the most comprehensive presentation of Nancy Holt in Germany to date. Taking a journey through Holt’s output, starting with her first artwork made in 1966, Circles of Light expands over the Gropius Bau’s ground floor and atrium. Paying attention to Holt’s experimental approach to the interplay between the immaterial and the material, this exhibition underscores the singularity of Holt’s oeuvre.

drawing by Robert Smithson showing wandering earth mounds and gravel paths

Chapter Six of Tuesday Texts

We are happy to announce that throughout January we will be publishing a sixth 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. This chapter of Tuesday Texts will focus on artworks by Robert Smithson.

Every Tuesday we will publish a text to our website that includes images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation reference, and endnotes pointing to the author’s references.