Smithson's "Cambrian Map of Sulfur and Tar" in "Dream Monuments" at the Menil Drawing Institute

Robert Smithson's 1969 drawing Cambrian Map of Sulfur and Tar will be included in the Menil Collection exhibition Dream Monuments: Drawing in the 1960s and 1970s. 

The exhibition will be on view at the Menil Drawing Institute from May 21—September 19, 2021.

From the Menil Collection: Dream Monuments: Drawing in the 1960s and 1970s presents drawings that challenge the conventional idea of the monument as a permanent, grand, or commemorative form. The provisional character of drawing helped artists envision forms in improbable scales and for impossible conditions, radically transforming the monument to have a new set of sensibilities. Scaled to the size of the page but enormous in ambition, these works rethink history while rendering environments at turns as absurd, surreal, and subjective.

On display will be works by Alice Aycock, Beverly Buchanan, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Mel Chin, Christo, Walter De Maria, Agnes Denes, Mary Beth Edelson, Jackie Ferrara, Gray Foy, Michael Heizer, Will Insley, Richard Long, Marta Minujín, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Smithson, and Michelle Stuart.

Robert Smithson, Cambrian Map of Sulfur and Tar (1969)

Crayon and marking pen on paper

17 × 14 in. (43.2 × 35.6 cm)

The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift of the artist.

Photo: Paul Hester

© Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

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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.