The painter, sculptor, theorist, filmmaker, and photographer Robert Smithson helped pioneer the Earthwork Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, which took as its subject the artistic reordering of the American landscape in its many varied forms. Chalk-Mirror Displacement belongs to a series of works, executed in 1968 and 1969, that combine mirrors and organic materials. Eight double-sided mirrors radiate like spokes from the center of a chalk pile located on the gallery floor. As they slice through the pile, the mirrors separate the chalk into almost identical wedge-shaped compartments. The double reflection in each compartment preserves the illusion of the whole pile, making the mirror dividers appear nearly invisible. This work is also one of Smithson’s Site/Nonsite pieces. The artist referred to the first stage of the work as a “Site Incarnation,” which he created for a particular outdoor location: in this case, a chalk quarry in Oxted, York, England. After setting up and photographing the Site piece, the artist then dismantled it. The materials were subsequently reinstalled in the Nonsite location, the seminal 1969 exhibition When Attitude Becomes Form at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. This process purposefully blurred the boundaries between art and its environment, within and without gallery walls.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Harald Szeemann, Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (Works – Concepts – Processes – Situations – Information), exh. cat. (Bern, Switzerland: Kunstalle Bern, 1969), n.p., cat. 96.
Robert Hobbs, Robert Smithson: Sculpture (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981), 5, 168-169, fig. 49 (ill.), 239, 257.
John Weber and Jeffrey Rian, Robert Smithson Sculpture 1968–69 (New York: John Weber Gallery, 1987), n.p. (ill.).
Robert A. Sobieszek, Robert Smithson: Photo Works, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993), 136 (color ill.), 160.
Madeleine Grynsztejn and Dave Hickey, About Place: Recent Art of the Americas, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1995), 39, fig. 29 (ill.).
James N. Wood, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/ Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 1996), 130, as Chalk Mirror Displacement, 1987 version of a 1969 work.
Guglielmo Bargellesi-Severi, ed., Vicki Goldberg, and Carlo Frua, Robert Smithson: Slideworks (Milan: Carlo Frua, 1997), 108 (color ill.), 109, 193, as
Per Bj. Boym, Annette Østerby, Tim Martin, Vibeke Petersen, Stian Grøgaard, and Maria Lind, Robert Smithson Retrospective: Works 1955-1973, exh. cat. (Oslo: National Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999), 279, as Exhibition copy.
Jennifer L. Roberts, Mirror-Travels: Robert Smithson and History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 45-46, fig. 20, as Chalk-Mirror Displacement, 1987 version of a 1969 work.
Eugenie Tsai, Cornelia Butler, and Thomas Crow, et. al, Robert Smithson, exh. cat. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 28, 166 (color ill.), 268, as Chalk-Mirror Displacement, 1969/2004, Exhibition copy.
Charles Altieri and Rei Terada, “Maximal Minimalism,” Postmodern Culture (2005), n.p., fig. 1, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v015/15.2altieri.html.
James Rondeau, The Essential Guide, third edition (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), n.p. (color ill).
Kristen Mack, “‘Chalk-Mirror Displacement’ now a bit more displaced” Chicago Tribune, Mar. 1, 2010, 1.3.
James Rondeau, The Essential Guide, fourth edition (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), n.p. (color ill).
London, Institute of Contemporary Art, “When Attitudes Become Form,” September 26–October 27, 1969 (destroyed). A photograph of the installation was shown at the earlier venue, Kunstalle Bern, March 3–April 27, 1969.
New York, John Weber Gallery, Robert Smithson: Sculpture 1968–69, Oct. 10–31, 1987, no cat. no.
Oslo, Norway, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Robert Smithson: Retrospective • Works 1955-1973, Feb. 27–May 2, 1999, cat. 133; Stockholm, Modern Museum Stockholm, June 19–Sept. 12, 1999, Ishøj, Denmark, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Oct. 2, 1999–Jan. 16, 2000.
Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Robert Smithson, Sept. 12–Dec. 13, 2004, no cat. no., Dallas Museum of Art, Jan. 14–Apr. 3, 2005, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, June 23–Oct. 16, 2005.
Estate of Robert Smithson. Sold, John Weber Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1987.
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