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Lot Essay
'Untitled' is one of a small group of mirror pieces that Robert Smithson executed in the mid 1960s. Robert Hobbs explains: "Continuing in the tradition of modern artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Smithson turned commonly deduced functions of art into literal equivalents: mirrors define art's illusionistic reflective surfaces, while the metal skeleton reiterates the framing device discussed so often in the sixties by adherents of Clement Greenberg's criticism... Each of the literal equivalents parodies the function it manifests.Even the overall structure of [the work] becomes an ironic comment on the then recently proclaimed shaped canvas that supposedly eliminated residual illusion in favor of the real. If art is concerned with mirroring the world, then Smithson turned his art into a reflective surface that literally does image the world: it mirrors its actual circumstances, making the space around it part of the sculpture." (R. Hobbs, in: 'Robert Smithson: Sculpture', Ithaca and London 1981, p. 58.)
In this example, the horizontal placement of the Plexiglas mirrors leads to a direct association to Smithson's land art works, whereby the mirrors on the left side of the structure mirror the floor, i.e. the ground or the earth, and the mirrors on the right side reflect the ceiling, i.e. the sky. He thus brings not only the reality of the surrounding space into the work, but also, on a metaphorical level, the entire earth and the cosmos. At the same time, the mirrors in the centre of the work also reflect each other, bringing about associations of infinity, as well as of the unity of the earth with the cosmos. Smithson thus "makes infinity a self-enclosed proposition, a tautology in which his sculpture at its center folds in on itself and reflects abstractly its ability to reflect. By structuring his sculpture so that it incorporates both realistic and abstract types of reflections - elements from the environment as well as the sculpture's ability to mirror itself - he is able to provide a range of visual experiences that ultimately become a philosophic proposition concerning the nature of vision." (ibid.)
In this example, the horizontal placement of the Plexiglas mirrors leads to a direct association to Smithson's land art works, whereby the mirrors on the left side of the structure mirror the floor, i.e. the ground or the earth, and the mirrors on the right side reflect the ceiling, i.e. the sky. He thus brings not only the reality of the surrounding space into the work, but also, on a metaphorical level, the entire earth and the cosmos. At the same time, the mirrors in the centre of the work also reflect each other, bringing about associations of infinity, as well as of the unity of the earth with the cosmos. Smithson thus "makes infinity a self-enclosed proposition, a tautology in which his sculpture at its center folds in on itself and reflects abstractly its ability to reflect. By structuring his sculpture so that it incorporates both realistic and abstract types of reflections - elements from the environment as well as the sculpture's ability to mirror itself - he is able to provide a range of visual experiences that ultimately become a philosophic proposition concerning the nature of vision." (ibid.)