A photograph of a pin-up girl, her nipples connected via wire to a rudimentary electrical circuit, swoons against a hot pink background encased in plexiglass. This boldly lurid sculpture seems a far cry from Smithson’s renowned earthworks. Indeed, this aspect of Smithson’s artistic production is not often included in the dialogue surrounding his oeuvre, yet its vivid transgressions and outspoken social commentary demand recognition.

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. Like the assemblage Honeymoon Machine from the same year, this wall-based sculpture draws on Smithson’s early erotic cartouches and the critical legacy of Marcel Duchamp.