EDUCATOR GUIDE:
Robert Smithson’s New Jersey
WELCOME
Dear Educator,
Thank you for your interest in Robert Smithson’s New Jersey.
Whether you have booked a guided tour, a gallery/studio program,
or a self-guided visit, this resource guide is designed to make your
experience more enriching and meaningful. Please use it with your
students in the classroom before and after your museum visit. It
provides questions to guide close looking, topics for discussions, and
activities which will help engage the key themes and concepts of the
exhibition. Art and writing projects have been suggested so that
students can explore ideas from the exhibition in ways that relate
directly to their lives and experiences.
Please feel free to adapt and build on these materials and to use this
packet in any way that you wish.
School programs at MAM are aligned with the Common Core
Standards as well as the goals laid out by the Partnership for 21st
Century Skills and promote literacy and evidential reasoning, content
knowledge and critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and
creativity.
MAM invites students and teachers to:
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look closely, find clues, and solve puzzles
become engaged with an artwork, in a debate
discover connections between facts and feelings, art and life
be inspired to create their own stories and artworks
feel empowered to find their own place at mam
We look forward to welcoming you and your students to the
Montclair Art Museum!
Sincerely,
Petra Pankow, Director of Education
9737 259 5157 or [email protected]
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TAKE A LOOK
Take a close look at the photographs on the previous page.
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In general terms, how would you summarize what they depict?
What do they have in common?
What are some individual features that pop out at you?
Describe your sensory response to these images, i.e. what sounds do
they evoke, what might one feel, hear, or smell when moving through
some of the places in the photographs.
Can you come up with a title for this group of images?
EXPLORE
At the age of 29, New York City-based artist Robert Smithson took a day
trip to his native New Jersey. Taking the bus to Passaic, not far from where
he grew up in Rutherford and Clifton, NJ, he documented what he saw
through a series of snapshots, minute verbal descriptions, observations,
and philosophical musings, all of which he published in the form of a
photo-essay in December, 1967 issue of the magazine Artforum, under the
title “The Monuments of Passaic.”
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How would you define a monument?
In what way might the “landmarks” captured in Smithson’s photos
signify as monuments – or not?
Why do you think the artists used this term in relation to his photoessay?
DISCUSS
In many ways, “The Monuments
of Passaic” is a meditation on
seeing in general and mediated
perception more specifically.
Smithson described that
walking on the bridge was like
“walking on an enormous
photograph.”
Noon-day sunshine cinema-ized the site,
turning the bridge and river into an overexposed picture. Photographing it with my
Instamatic 400 was like photographing a
photograph.
Robert Smithson, “The Monuments of Passaic,” 1967
In our own time of digital cameras and smartphones, documenting
experiences and encounters of all kinds has become commonplace - as
have sharing, tagging, commenting on, and ‘liking’ them.
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What do you think Smithson meant by “photographing [the bridge]
was […] like photographing a photograph”?
How do you think our own engagement with documenting our firsthand experiences does or does not change our perception of what
we see and experience?
Imagine retracing Smithson’s steps today. In what ways might your
experience be similar to his? How would it be different?
YOUR TURN
Take a walk around your neighborhood and identify landmarks or
“monuments” that strike you as characteristic of your surroundings. Using
a digital camera, document your walk by taking pictures of these sites or
places. Think about how you want to frame each monument, taking
advantage of the view finder’s capacity to help you compose and image to
its most expressive potential. Once you have 5-8 images, in place, “walk”
your classmates through your experience and how you chose to record it.
If you want to add a written part to your documentation, you can use that
as the basis of this virtual walk.
FURTHER CONVERSATION
On the Bus to Passaic, Smithson read the New York Times, where he saw a
reproduction of Samuel Morse’s Allegorical Landscape (pictured on the
right). How does this image relate to Smithson’s other visual experiences
that day?
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TAKE A LOOK
Take a close at the image above.
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Describe what you see in terms of color, shape, composition, and
materials,
What different components does the work consist of?
How are they arranged?
What sorts of associations does the artwork evoke?
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The image is a photograph of a three dimensional work. How might
you interact with it?
How might it change if you walked around it?
EXPLORE
The first of a series of non-sites, Smithson created this work after a Spring
1967 trip to the New Jersey Pine Barrens with a few fellow artists to look
for places where they could construct Earthworks. In a reversal of his initial
intention, he collected sand from different sections of
Coyle Field, an airstrip used during fire emergencies, and created boxes in
which to display it in the museum space. As curator Phyllis Tuchman writes,
“The shaped aluminum containers of this sculpture reference the multiple
runways at Coyle and resemble the hexagon identifying the field on a
quadrant map of the area” (see below). The maps which were often
exhibited alongside and as a part of the nonsites were simultaneously
meant to document and symbolically root the work in the “site” from which
the materials were originally taken, inviting viewers to seek out these “real”
locations.
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What do you think
Smithson wanted to
achieve with this
work?
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Imagine seeing the
nonsite in the museum.
Would you be
interested in going to
the site it is based on?
Why? Why not?
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How does Smithson
establish a
relationship between
map and experience?
Do you think this
relationship has
changed in the era of
GPS and Google
maps? Please explain.
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DISCUSS
Earthworks were supposed to be alternatives to what was
by many artists regarded as the constricting world of
galleries and museums.
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By creating “indoor earthworks” as Smithson called
his early nonsites, does he turn his back on this
intention? Please discuss.
We hope to get away
from the formalism of
studio art, to give the
viewer more of a
confrontation with the
physicality of things
outside. It’s
diametrically opposed
to the idea of art as
decoration and design
Robert Smithson
YOUR TURN
Smithson was fascinated with maps from an early age, using them to
navigate his home state and to plan family trips in far-flung areas of the
U.S. Using a map of New Jersey (you can get one here:
http://www.mappery.com/map-of/New-Jersey-Road-Map), chart your
own hometown within the context of the State as well as other landmarks
(places you’ve travelled to, where your relatives live, that you have heard
about in the news or read about in history class. Illustrate these various
places by drawing or collaging onto the map. As an extension, you can also
research artists who have lived and/or worked in New Jersey in their work
(George Inness, William Eaton, or Martin Johnson Heade) and mark the
places they depicted or were inspired by.
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TAKE A LOOK
Take a close at this image and describe, with as much detail as possible,
what you see?
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What colors to you notice?
What shapes do you see?
What different components can you divide the work into?
What materials is it made of?
Where might the artists have sourced these materials?
How do you think it was put together?
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The image shows a photograph of an installation
work. How would the experience of the work in a
gallery space be different from just looking at the
picture?
EXPLORE
Like Smithson’s non-sites, this work, entitled Red
Sandstone Corner Piece, transplants materials from a
specific place (Sandy Hook quarry in New Jersey) into
the space of a gallery or museum. However, as
opposed to the non-sites, Smithson uses mirrors in
addition to the partially disintegrating sandstone pieces.
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Compare and contrast the installation view with the drawing of the
piece (pictured above), which Smithson completed three years after
he created the sculpture it depicts.
What does the use of mirrors add to this work?
Why do you think Smithson decided to use mirrors?
Why did he install them in a corner?
Describe and think about how viewers interact with the installation.
How does the work frame the relationship between artist and
viewer?
DISCUSS
As a work which borrows from an actual place and engages with ideas of
space, Red Sandstone Corner Piece is reminiscent of landscape traditions
in art and therefore arguably related to many works in MAM’s painting
collection, which depict the Meadowlands, the area around Montclair, and
other places in the Garden State.
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Discuss the sculpture’s relationship to traditional landscape art (as
seen at MAM in the George Inness Gallery and the exhibition 100
Works for 100 Years).
In what ways does it continue/fit into this tradition?
In what ways does it depart from it?
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YOUR TURN
Smithson's fascination with entropy, the tending of things towards a state
of chaos, is at once underlined and countered by many of his sculptures.
Materials are randomly transplanted but also organized and displayed in
contained form, in the controlled environment of the museum. Using
manufactured containers like mint tins or technology packaging on the one
hand and outdoor specimen like rocks, shells, or plant parts, create an
artwork which thematizes an encounter between natural and manmade,
primordial and contemporary, chaos and order.
FURTHER CONVERSATION
Smithson created other works involving mirrors, too. In many of these
cases, instead of bringing the landscape into the museum, he brought
mirrors into the landscape. Compare and contrast Red Sandstone Corner
Piece with Mirrow Span, Great Notch Quarry, 1969 (pictured below).
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GLOSSARY
Earthwork
Artistic manipulation of the natural landscape, usually enacted on a large
scale. Smithson was a pioneer of the Earthworks movement, and his Spiral
Jetty is an example of an Earthwork.
Entropy
Entropy is a law of nature in which everything slowly goes into disorder, chaos
and ruin. Smithson wanted to experiment with entropy by filling half a
sandbox with white sand and the other half with black sand. “If a child ran in a
circle, he declared, the sand would blend together. Afterwards, if the child ran
in the opposite direction, the black and white would not return to their original
condition.”
Industry
The process of making products by using machinery and factories, it
sometimes generates traffic, odors, noise, dust and other types of pollution.
Instamatic
An early point and shoot camera that Smithson used to take photographs.
Meadowlands
A New Jersey estuary, the Meadowlands are a half-developed, half-untamed
tract of swampland. They have been home to rare flora and fauna, tranquil
marshes, a major sports arena, burning garbage dumps and
corporations. Smithson grew up near the Meadowlands and explored the area
in his art.
Minimalist
An artistic movement of the 1960s in which artists produced pared-down
three-dimensional objects devoid of representational content. Their new
vocabulary of simplified, geometric forms made from industrial materials
challenged traditional notions of craftsmanship, the illusion of spatial depth in
painting, and the idea that a work of art must be one of a kind.
Mirrors:
Smithson uses mirrors in his work to talk about reflections and
abstraction. He said, “I'm using a mirror because the mirror in a sense is both
the physical mirror and the reflection: the mirror as a concept and abstraction;
then the mirror as a fact within the mirror of the concept”
Quadrant Map
The United States Geological Survey generally breaks up their topographical
maps into four sections. Smithson used maps like these in his Non-sites.
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Quarry
A large deep pit or mountain where stone or other materials are taken out of
the ground. Smithson visited quarries in New Jersey.
Non-site
This is Smithson’s term for his metal bins of rocklike materials paired with
maps and photographs. He collected the rocks and sand from specific sites in
New Jersey and brought them into the gallery or museum. He explained,
“Instead of putting a work of art on some land, some land is put into the work
of art”
Sculpture
A three-dimensional work of art as in Smithson’s Non-sites.
Suburbia
A mixed use and residential area within commuting distance of a major
city. Smithson grew up in a suburb of New York City and explored the
characteristics of suburbia in his art.
Glossary compiled by Luned Palmer, Education Intern
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IMAGE CREDITS:
Cover:
Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
New Jersey, New York, 1967
Mixed media on paper
32.95 x 30.55 x 1.18 in.
Courtesy Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
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Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
Monuments of Passaic, 1967, Printed 2013
Twenty-four inkjet prints on archival rag paper, printed from original 126 format black and
white negatives
12 x 12 in. each
Estate of Robert Smithson, courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai
Page 6, 7
Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
A Nonsite, Pine Barrens, New Jersey 1967 (map); 1968 (Nonsite)
Nonsite: painted aluminum, sand, and painted wood; aerial photograph/map: Photostat
Overall (Nonsite): 12 x 65 ½ x 65 ½ in.
Overall (aerial photograph/map): 12 ½ x 10 ½ in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Virginia Dwan 2013.19.2.1, 2
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Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
Red Sandstone Corner Piece, 1968
Mirrors and sandstone
48 x 48 x 48 in.
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with funds (by exchange) from the Samuel S.
White 3rd and Vera White Collection and with funds contributed by Henry S. McNeil, Jr.,
Mrs. Adolf Schaap, Marion Boulton Stroud, and Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Gushner, 1988
Page 10
Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
#7 Red Sandstone Mirror, 1971
Graphite and ink on paper
24 x 19 in.
Private Collection, New York
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Robert Smithson (1938-1973)
Mirror Span, Great Notch Quarry, Montclair, New Jersey, 1968, Printed 2012
Cibachrome print reproduced from original 126 format transparency
24 x 24 in. each
Estate of Robert Smithson, courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai
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