Artists on Robert Smithson

Artists from Matthew Buckingham to Diana Thater address the rich legacy of Robert Smithsons films, sculptures and Spiral Jetty This is the fifth volume in a series that builds upon Dia Art Foundations Artists on Artists lectures. The contributors to Artists on Robert Smithson engage with Smithsons work in myriad ways: Matthew Buckinghams essay highlights Smithsons preoccupation with the ways that histories of the earth are constructed and contested; Abraham Cruzvillegas considers Smithsons work with broken glass and architecture; Mark Dions didactic approach to the life and work of the artist recounts the conceptual and evolutionary conditions that led to his birth and development; Teresita Fernndez confronts the limitations of dominant histories of place, art and the monumental; Trevor Paglen considers Smithsons iconic spiral and his fascination with natural history; Rayyane Tabet weaves together a history of basalt that reveals themes of colonialism, surveillance and strife; and finally, engaging with the science fiction canon and its cinematic conventions, Diana Thater provides a close reading of Smithsons Spiral Jetty film.