Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with netsa garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

a garden of tropical plants covered with nets

Robert Smithson, Overgrown Structure (1971)
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

1971—1973

Overgrown Structure

Robert Smithson
1971
Florida Keys
Series of twenty 126 format chromogenic slides
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

In May of 1971 Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt returned to Florida to visit the Florida Keys, with Smithson searching the shoreline for potential locations for his hypothetical earthworks Island Maze and Forking Island. While in the Keys Smithson created Overgrown Structure, a series of twenty images of a garden with abundant tropical foliage completely covered in nets.  The netting keeps out birds and other small animals, mitigates the power of the sun, and provides a structure for growth. While the foliage grows, the nets become pulled into the structure of tree and plant tentacles. A consistent interest for Smithson is the interdependent relationship between human beings and the non-human beings and conditions that form our surroundings—the interrelationship between human-made structures and botanical growth in Overgrown Structure illustrates this enduring fascination for Smithson. 

Related Info

1969—1970
a tree sticking out of the sand upside down on a beach
Upside Down Tree II
Robert Smithson
1969
1969—1970

Boldly subverting the natural order, Smithson uproots a tree and buries it back into the earth, upside down. Smithson created and photographed a series of three Upside Down Trees in 1969: the first in Alfred, New York; the second in Captiva Island, Florida; and the third in Yucatán, Mexico.  In his essay Incidents of Mirror Travel in the Yucatán (1969), Smithson writes, “…lines drawn on a map will connect them.

See Also