{"id":25256,"date":"2014-03-24T15:52:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=25256"},"modified":"2019-11-01T15:12:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T21:12:34","slug":"robert-smithsons-sculpture-in-context-at-umfa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/robert-smithsons-sculpture-in-context-at-umfa\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Smithson\u2019s Sculpture in Context at UMFA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>

Kelly Kivland discusses Robert Smithson’s Leaning Mirror at the UMFA<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

On\u00a0March 18th, the\u00a0Utah Museum of Fine Arts\u00a0(UMFA) unveiled\u00a0a work by American artist RobertSmithson (1938-1973), on\u00a0loan\u00a0from\u00a0Dia\u00a0Art Foundation. The regional partnerships Dia formed in\u00a0early\u00a02012 with UMFA and Westminster College\u2019s Great Salt Lake Institute regarding Smithson\u2019s monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty<\/em>\u00a0finds its first publicly-seen\u00a0collaborative venture in the\u00a0loan of Smithson\u2019s sculpture “Leaning Mirror “(1969).\u00a0The opportunity to\u00a0engage in another work of art, created just a year\u00a0before Smithson’s created Spiral Jetty,\u00a0is a welcome addition to understanding this seminal artist’s work.<\/p>\n

“Leaning Mirror” is\u00a0comprised of two\u00a0mirrors, 6\u2019 high, placed back-to-back and inserted\u00a030\u201d off the floor\u00a0into a mound of soil and stones.\u00a0The\u00a0installation of “Leaning Mirror” at UMFA is an exhibition copy\u00a0(the artwork is also on\u00a0view at Dia:Beacon\u00a0in Beacon, New York)\u00a0and was\u00a0created to specifications from a drawing made by Smithson in 1969.\u00a0While Smithdon left specific instructions on placement of the mirrors in the mound, according to Dia’s assistant curator Kelly Kivland,\u00a0the mound itself was\u00a0to remain unstructured.<\/p>\n

Smithson\u2019s sculptural works\u00a0begun in 1968 were self-named ‘Nonsites’:\u00a0natural materials were gathered from designated outdoor sites then situated indoors, often with fabricated objects such as mirrors,\u00a0containers, or maps. Kivland \u2013 in a public talk she gave at UMFA on March 20th\u00a0\u2013 indicated “Leaning Mirror”\u00a0is a seminal Nonsite: sand gathered by Smithson from Heerlen,\u00a0theNetherlands,\u00a0was used in this work accompanied by\u00a0the\u00a0two mirrors.\u00a0Smithson exhibited and also worked in the Netherlands, appreciating the country’s long history in land reclamation. In 1971,Smithson created his\u00a0second monumental earthwork, “Broken Circle\/Spiral Hill,” in\u00a0Emmen,\u00a0the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

“Leaning Mirror” was not the first time Smithson used\u00a0mirrors as artistic medium, yet it gives us context\u00a0to his\u00a0interest in the dialectical conversations he posited between materiality, image, and space.\u00a0He placed mirrors in landscapes\u00a0and photographed them as works of art both in the United States and abroad, relishing in the expanded landscape created through reflection. Spiral Jetty<\/em>\u00a0was situated in a lake\u00a0often referenced as a mirror given the\u00a0unique atmospheric and saline qualities\u00a0of Great Salt Lake. “Leaning Mirror” also reflects its surroundings, decidedly interior yet expanded nonetheless. Whitney\u00a0Tassie, UMFA\u2019s Curator\u00a0of Modern and Contemporary Art, situated Smithson\u2019s sculpture\u00a0in such a way that the top mirror reflects the room, ceiling, and\u00a0\u2013 from a discre<\/a>te angle – the work “Sunlight in Sun Tunnels” (1976)\u00a0by Nancy Holt, Smithson\u2019s wife at the time of\u00a0his death in 1973. The reverse mirror\u00a0reflects the room, floor, and\u00a0the sculpture “Fermator” (1997) by Carl Andre, who was\u00a0a friend to both\u00a0Holt\u00a0and Smithson.<\/p>\n

“Leaning Mirror” will remain at UMFA for\u00a0one\u00a0year in keeping with\u00a0Dia\u2019s\u00a0curatorial interest to give visitors time to visit and revisit works of art to better understand their importance and impact. UMFA will\u00a0change several works surrounding “Leaning Mirror” over the course of the year, so Smithson\u2019s expanded, reflected view will bring new ways to engage in his art.<\/p>\n

For more information and hours, visit http:\/\/umfa.utah.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  On\u00a0March 18th, the\u00a0Utah Museum of Fine Arts\u00a0(UMFA) unveiled\u00a0a work by American artist RobertSmithson (1938-1973), on\u00a0loan\u00a0from\u00a0Dia\u00a0Art Foundation. The regional partnerships Dia formed in\u00a0early\u00a02012 with UMFA and Westminster College\u2019s Great Salt Lake Institute regarding Smithson\u2019s monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty\u00a0finds its first publicly-seen\u00a0collaborative venture in the\u00a0loan of Smithson\u2019s sculpture “Leaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1515,"featured_media":25271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[88,832],"class_list":["post-25256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual_arts","tag-robert-smithson","tag-umfa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/photo-4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 13:55:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25256"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47947,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256\/revisions\/47947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}