Trailer Partially Covered with Asphalt

Robert SmithsonWW-1970-070717

1970·Graphite and black fiber-tipped pen on ivory wove paper·48.3 × 61 cm (19 1/16 × 24 1/16 in.)

Trailer Partially Covered with Asphalt was originally conceived as an alternative to Juggernaut-Boston Project (1970), a piece designed by Robert Smithson that was never realized three-dimensionally. As noted by Robert Hobbs, this composition, like Juggernaut, illustrates Smithson’s use of entropic figures in his designs. The trailer represents, in the words of Smithson, “monumental inaction” and the idea that systems of order will always fall into disorder.

Catalogue

Year: 1970
Medium: Graphite and black fiber-tipped pen on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: 48.3 × 61 cm (19 1/16 × 24 1/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Robert Smithson

Artist

Robert Smithson

Sculpture

Seminal American artist Robert Smithson was born in 1938 in Passaic, New Jersey. Most widely known for his sculpture work, namely that which was associated with the Land Art movement, Smithson was also an influential writer. Smithson took several classes at the Art Students League of New York, as well as the Brooklyn Museum School, before serving in the US Army Reserves between 1956 and 1957 – after which he relocated permanently to New York. By the late 1950s, Smithson was fully immersed in his art practice, creating paintings, drawings and collages, ultimately culminating in his first solo show at the Artists Gallery in 1959.

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