In The Machine Taking a Wife, Robert Smithson expands his use of collage into sculpture. A green-tinged image of an industrial machine sits above a similarly tinted image of a female pinup, framed in a hot pink outline, the two linked by a  rectifier tube - a vacuum tube diode that converts alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) in electronic equipment.

In Radio Cyclops (1964), a wide-open eye occupies the center, linked via a circuit to a hot pink band of color. When looking at the sculpture, one sees one’s own eyes looking back, reflected and refracted in the mirrored surfaces. Made at a time when Smithson was experimenting with plastics and developing sculptural ideas from his collages, this wall-based sculpture incorporates Plexiglass, polished blue steel, and mirrors on a wooden support.