ROBERT SMITHSON – PRIMORDIAL BEGINNINGS
2020-12-07Primordial Beginnings will investigate Smithson’s exploration of, as he said in 1972, “origins and primordial beginnings, […] the archetypal nature of things.” This careful selection of works on paper will demonstrate how Smithson worked as, to use his words, a geological agent. He presciently explored the impact of human beings on the surface of our planet. The earliest works are fantastical science-fiction landscape paintings embedded in geological thinking. These rarely seen paintings from 1961 point to his later earthworks and proposals for collaborations with industry. Between 1961 and 1963 Smithson developed a series of collages showing evolving amphibians and dinosaurs. Paris in the Spring (1963) depicts a winged boy atop a Triceratops beside the Eiffel Tower, while Algae Algae (ca. 1961-63) combines paint and collage turtles in a dark green sea of words.
Opposite – Untitled, 1963
Exhibition runs through to January 9th, 2021
Marian Goodman Gallery
79 rue du temple
75003 Paris
France
