INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

This t ranscript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be ci ted as fol lows: Oral his tory in terview with Robert Smithson, 1972 Ju ly 14-19, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Ins t i tu t ion.

In terview with Robert Smithson Conducted by Paul Cummings In New York City Ju ly 14 and 19, 1972 Preface

The fol lowing oral his tory t ranscript is the resul t of a tape-recorded interview with Robert Smithson on Ju ly 14 and 19, 1972. The in terview was conducted at 799 Greenwich Street in New York City by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Ins t i tu t ion. Nancy Hol t is also present.

In terview

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t ’s Ju ly 14, 1972 – Paul Cummings talk ing to Robert Smithson. Let ’s sor t of do some background. You were born in New Jersey?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, in Passaic, New Jersey.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you come from a big family?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, I ’m and only chi ld.

PAUL CUMMINGS: So many ar t is ts I ’ve been in terviewing late ly have been an only chi ld. Did you grow up there, go to school there?

ROBERT SMITHSON: What happened was I was born in Passaic and l ived there for a short t ime. We moved to Rutherford, New Jersey. Wil l iam Carlos Wil l iams actual ly was my baby doctor in Rutherford. We l ived there unt i l I was about nine and then we moved to Cli f ton, New Jersey to a sect ion cal led Al lwood. I guess around that t ime I had an incl inat ion towards being an ar t is t .

PAUL CUMMINGS: Were you making drawings?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, yes. I was working in that area even back in the ear ly phases in Rutherford.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, how did you l ike al l the business of moving around al l the t ime? That’s a lot of moving.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Actual ly we moved only twice: to Rutherford and to Cli f ton. I was very in terested in that t ime in natural his tory. In Cli f ton my father set up – bui l t I guess what you could cal l a kind of suburban basement museum for me to display al l my fossi ls and shel ls, I was involved with col lect ing insects and…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Where did these shel ls come from?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, dif ferent places. We traveled a lot at that t ime. Right af ter the war in 1946 we went out West. I was about eight years old. I t was an impressionable period. I s tar ted to get involved in that at that t ime. But basical ly I was pret ty much unto mysel f. I was very much in terested in, you know, f ie ld natural is t th ings, looking for insects, rocks and whatever.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you have any books around that were involved with these topics?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And I went to the museum of Natural His tory. When I was, I guess, about seven I did very large paper construct ions of dinosaurs which in a funny

way I suppose relate r ight up to the present in terms of the f i lm I made on The Spiral Je t ty. I used the prehis tor ic moti f running through that. So in a funny way I guess there is not that much dif ferent between what I am now and my chi ldhood. I real ly had a problem with school. I mean there was no real unders tanding of where I was at. I didn’ t know where I was at that t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you l ike primary school or high school?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, I didn’ t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t didn’ t work?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. I grew up rather host i le to that. In high school actual ly I s tar ted going to the Art Students League. I won a scholarship to that. In my last year of high school I managed to get only half a day. I was jus t very put of f by the whole way art was taught.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Real ly? In what way?

ROBERT SMITHSON: By my high school teacher.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, I see. What kind of things were they doing that…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, my high school teacher would come up with s tatements l ike – I remember this one vividly – that only people that become art is ts are cr ipples and women.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, great! This was a high school ar t teacher?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was their problem?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, they seemed to have al l k inds of problems. Everything was kind of res t r ic ted. There was no comprehension of any kind, no creative at t i tude. I t was most ly rote. A very unimaginative teaching s taf f, constr ic ted and departmental ized. At that point I didn’ t have any sel f - real izat ion so I real ly couldn’ t te l l except for the Art Students League did offer me a chance to at least come in contact with other people. I made a lot of f r iends with people in the High School of Music and Art in New York. I looked forward to coming into…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you go to that school?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, but I had a lot of f r iends. And we had a sketch class. Every Saturday in the last two years of high school I went to Isaac Soyer’s s tudio. He has a son, Avram Soyer. There were a lot of s tudents f rom Music and Art High School who used to go there. We used to sketch each other and we’d talk about ar t and go to museums. And that was l ike a very important th ing for me to get out of that kind of s t i f l ing suburban atmosphere where there was jus t nothing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you get the scholarship to the League?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I applied for that. I did a series of woodcuts, rather large woodcuts of – wel l, I remember one of them was cal led teenagers on 42nd Street. I t was done in a kind of German Expressionis t s ty le. I was about seventeen when I did that.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you have ar t books and things at home?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. There was an avai labi l i ty of ar t books because I kept coming into New York and buying ar t books and I was pursuing i t on my own.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you got to museums and gal ler ies?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. The f i rs t museum show I saw at the Museum of Modern Art was The Fauves exhibi t ion. I was about s ix teen. I had that at t i tude. And then to go back to Cli f ton High School and try to present those ideas didn’ t qui te je l l . There was jus t k ind of di f f icul ty there. But i t was a very important period, I th ink. I don’ t know – I suppose things are get t ing bet ter. At present I am very in terested in ar t education. Ohio State Universi ty has jus t invi ted me to part ic ipate in a conference on New Approaches in Art Education in Apri l 1973.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That’s in terest ing. Were you in terested in other c lasses in school?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, I was somewhat in terested in wri t ing al though at that t ime I had a sor t of wri ter ’s block, you know, I couldn’ t get i t qui te together. I had a good oral sense; I l iked to talk. I remember giving a talk, I th ink in my sophomore year in high school, on The War of the Worlds, the H.G. Wells th ing. And I gave a talk on the proposed Guggenheim Museum. Things l ike that in terested me. But I found that th ings that in terested me real ly didn’ t coincide with school so I became more and more disenchanted and more and more confused.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You had no ins t ructor in school who picked up on any of those things?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. I t was al l very host i le and cramped, and i t jus t al ienated me more and more to the point where I grew rather host i le to the whole public school s i tuat ion. And in a very, very defini te way I wanted nothing to do with high school, or rather I had no intent ion of going to col lege at that t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What about the wri t ing? When did that s tar t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: That s tar ted in 1965-1966. But that was more of a sel f - taught s i tuat ion. Af ter about f ive years of thrashing around on my own, I jus t s tar ted to pi l l my thoughts together and was able to s tar t wri t ing. Since then I guess I ’ve wri t ten about twenty ar t ic les.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you f ind i t augments your work? Or is i t separate f rom?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, i t comes out of my sensibi l i ty. I mean i t comes out of my own observat ion. I mean i t sor t of paral le ls my actual ar t involvement. In other words, the two coincide; one informs the other. That was a very crucial t ime. I t was in the f i f t ies and everything was repressed and stupid; there was no ar t context as we know i t now. There weren’ t any gal ler ies to speak of. I was very much encouraged by Federica Beer -Monti who ran the Art is ts Gal lery when I was six teen or seventeen. She was an Austr ian woman of the circ le of Kokoscha and that crowd. She had been painted by a lot of those people. She was very encouraging.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you meet her?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I took my woodcuts to the gal lery. I t was run by Hugh St ix and his wife. They were very encouraging. I t was a non-prof i t gal lery. I would have discussions there with Owen Ratchl i f f , who was sor t of the director. And Federica was jus t very encouraging. I would say that in a way she gave me an opportuni ty to work for mysel f.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You had a show with them at one point?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I had a show with them. I was the youngest ar t is t to even show there. And I fe l t – wel l, you know, i f I can show at age nineteen, keep going. I ’ve always been kind of unteachable, I guess, especial ly at that point. I met other people. I was f r iendly with the son of Meyer Levin who went to Music and Art High School. I remember his saying that I was the type of person that couldn’ t go to school, that I would make i t very big or else go crazy.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Nice al ternat ives. How did you l ike the Art Students League? What did you do there?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t gave me an opportuni ty to meet younger people and people who were sor t of sympathet ic to my out look. I mean there wasn’ t anybody in Cli f ton who I was close to except for one person. His name was Danny Donahue. He got in terested in ar t. But eventual ly he did go crazy and was ki l led in a motorcycle accident. He joined a Brooklyn gang of motorcycl is ts and jus t… I mean i t was a very di f f icul t t ime, I th ink for people to f ind themselves.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That was – what? – in the f i f t ies?

ROBERT SMITHSON: In the f i f t ies, yes. This was I ’d say, around 1956-57. I spent a short period – six months - in the army.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Were you draf ted? Or did you join?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No I joined. Actual ly I joined with Danny Donohue, Joe Levin, and Charl ie Haslof f. Charl ie came from Dusseldorf. Both Danny and Joe were excluded and that lef t Charl ie and me. The reason I joined was because i t was a special plan; i t was Special Services and i t was a kind of ar t group, ar t s i tuat ion.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, real ly! What was that?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, s t rangely enough, John Cassavetes was in this group. And Miles Kruger, who is an expert in nostalgia.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, yes! The American Musical Stage.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Right. You know him?

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, for years! Yes.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, in a way he was responsible for cueing me into the si tuat ion. So i t turned out that I went to For t Knox, went through basic t raining, spent some unhappy hours in cartographer’s school, and then ended up as sor t of ar t is t - in -residence at For t Knox. I did watercolors for the mess hal l there for local army ins tal la t ions. I want to make the point that i t was a very confusing period. Another important re lat ionship was with a poet named Alan Bri l l iant. I s tayed at his place up on Park Avenue and 96th Street, E l Bario area. He was involved with publishing poets.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Where did you meet him?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I met him, again, through Joe Levin. I don’ t know what has happened to Joe Levin. I th ink he’s become a Zionis t or something of that sor t and l ives in Israel.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Was Miles with you al l through this mi l i tary period?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I spent a few t imes with Miles at the Rienzi Café down in the Vi l lage where we had discussions. That sor t of th ing. I don’ t know him that wel l. I th ink this was around 1956. I mean that was an in terest ing period for me. I ’m t ry ing to put i t together r ight now.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What about the poet though – Bri l l iant?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Bri l l iant marr ied a novel is t , Mateo Savery, and moved out to Cali fornia and became a l i t t le magazine publisher. The Unicorn Press in Cali fornia. In that t ime I met Hubert Selby, who wrote Last Exi t to Brooklyn. Franz Kl ine, a lot of people … He also in t roduced me to a lot of people f rom Black Mountain. And this is l ike an important th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: At the Cedar Bar.

ROBERT SMITHSON: At the Cedar Bar. Carl Andre said one t ime that that was where he got his education. In a way I k ind of agree with him.

PAUL CUMMINGS: A lot of people did.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I th ink i t was a kind of meeting place for people who were sor t of s t ruggling to f igure out who they were and where they were going.

PAUL CUMMINGS: The late f i f t ies was also a sor t of heyday of the Tenth Street gal ler ies.

ROBERT SMITHSON: That’s r ight. I knew a lot of people involved in that. Al though I had had this show at the Art is ts Gal lery, I was somewhat unsatis f ied; wel l, the show was reviewed in Art News by I rv ing Sandler and I jus t didn’ t feel sat is f ied. Strangely enough, the work sor t of grew out of Barnet t Newman; I was using s t r ipes and then gradual ly in t roduced pieces of paper over the s t r ipes. The s t r ipes then sor t of got in to a kind of archetypal imagis t ic period ut i l iz ing images simi lar, I guess, to Pol luck’s She-Wolf period and Dubuffet and cer tain mythological re l igious archetype.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, That’s something l ike the images in the show in Rome then? – r ight?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Also that comes out of that period. Charles Alan offered to put me in a show. And the reason I got the show in Rome was because of the paint ing cal led Quicksand. I t ’s and abstract ion done with gouache. I th ink Charles Alan s t i l l owns i t . I t was fundamental ly abstract, sor t of ol ives and yel lows and pieces of paper s tapled onto i t ; i t had a kind of incoherent landscape look to i t .

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you know Newman’s work? Were you in tr igued by that kind of th ing?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I did see Newman’s work. But emotional ly I wasn’ t – I mean I responded to i t but th is la tent imagery was s t i l l in me, a kind of anthropomorphism; and, you see, I was also concerned with Dubuffet and de Kooning in terms of that kind of submerged…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Where had you seen Dubuffe t? Because he was not shown that much here.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, I th ink he had a lot of th ings in the Museum of Modern Art. And I 'd seen books. I th ink he was being shown at one of the gal ler ies, I can' t remember exact ly which one. I 'm pret ty sure I saw things of his in the Museum of Modern Art. I was around twenty at th is t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: As long as we're talk ing about gal ler ies and museums, which gal ler ies in terested you most? Do you remember the ones that you went to in those days? You've mentioned Charles Alan and the Art is ts Gal lery.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, a lot of the gal ler ies hadn' t opened yet. I was very much in t r igued by Dick Bel lamy's gal lery - the Hansa Gallery. When I was s t i l l going to the Art Students League I used to drop around the corner to see Dick Bel lamy. He was very encouraging. Also in the late f i f t ies I moved to Montgomery Street; there I was l iv ing about three blocks f rom Dick Bel lamy. He was the f i rs t one to invi te me to an actual opening. I bel ieve i t was an Al lan Kaprow opening at the Hansa Gallery. At the t ime I was t ry ing to put together a book of ar t and poetry with Al lan Graham (Which never manifes ted i tse l f ) but I wanted to use… Dick had suggested that I go to see these new young art is ts Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg. I remember having seen their work at The Jewish Museum in a smal l show. And also in this book I wanted to include comic s t r ips. I was especial ly in terested in the ear ly issues of Mad Magazine - Man Out of Control. Then there was an ar t is t who was in terest ing, somebody who had

a kind of somewhat psychopathic approach to ar t; his name was Joseph Winter and he was showing at the Art is ts Gal lery; I wanted to include him. I also met Al len Ginsberg sand Jack Kerouac at that t ime. I met lo ts of people through Dick Bel lamy. Let me see what else. I worked at the Eighth Street Bookshop too.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, real ly? When was that?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I would say in 1958, I th ink r ight about that period give or take a year.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Those crazy brothers. To kind of go back a bi t, who did you s tuf fy with at the League?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh. John Groth, who was an i l lus t rator.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you select him?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, you see, I could only go on Fr idays. I also s tudied with somebody named Beauvais during the week. But I jus t selected him. He had a sor t of loose way of drawing and I was in terested in drawing. In the ear ly years of high school I guess I had ideas of being an i l lus t rator of some sor t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Making i t usefu l with a paying career.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. But John Groth was a worthwhi le teacher and he had a good sense of composi t ion. I always did my work at home. I did sketching from models and things at the league, but basical ly I did al l my work at home. I worked in caseins. I s t i l l have some of those works f rom that period.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did your family l ike this development?

ROBERT SMITHSON: They didn’ t l ike i t .

PAUL CUMMINGS: There was no encouragement?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, you know, they jus t didn’ t see i t as a paying enterprise. They saw i t as a rather quest ionable occupation, Bohemian, you know, that sor t of th ing. Al though my great -grandfather was a rather wel l -known art is t around the turn of the century. He did in ter ior plaster work in al l the major municipal bui ldings in New York: the Museum of Natural His tory, the Metropoli tan; he did the ent i re subway system.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was his name?

ROBERT SMITHSON: His name was Charles Smithson. Well, of course since then al l the work has been torn out of the subways. I guess i t was of that period that Lewis Mumford cal led The Bronze Decade; you know, that kind of work. There was an ar t ic le wri t ten about him in an old journal f rom around 1900. Lawrence Al loway is doing a very comprehensive piece on me for Ar t forum so I ’ve given him that magazine. But i t was in terest ing. He was also involved in sor t of public ar t. Then my grandfather worked with him for a whi le. But then the unions came in and that sor t of craf t work went out and prefab work came in. And then the Depression wiped out my great -grandfather and my grandfather who was sor t of a poet actual ly - -

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was his name?

ROBERT SMITHSON: His name was James Smithson – I ’m sorry – Sam Smithson; I ’m thinking of the other Smithson, the Smithsonian one. Incidental ly, there was somebody at Columbia who claimed that I was related to him, that al l the Smithsons were related, you know, to the founder of the Smithsonian Ins t i tu t ion, as a matter of fact.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, you see how smal l the world is.

ROBERT SMITHSON: But I don’ t know about that. I mean that’s…

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t ’s only two hundred years ago.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, he had no offspring, I don’ t know – I never could unders tand – this man whose name is I .M. Smithson is working at Columbia on al l of the Smithsons and how they’re re lated to the Smithsonian one.

NANCY HOLT: There are only three Smithsons in the phone book.

ROBERT SMITHSON: As a matter of fact, he cal led me up as a resul t of the f lyer f rom the Art is ts Gal lery which one of the s tudents gave him. But I never heard anything about that.

PAUL CUMMINGS: He may st i l l be up there digging away somewhere.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Right. My father worked for Auto- l i te. I do remember some interest ing things that he used to bring me home. He used to bring home f i lms – they had al l these car parts sor t of automated, you know, l ike marching spark plugs and marching carburetors and that sor t of th ing. I t ’s very vivid in my mind. Later on he went in to real estate and f inal ly in to mortgage and banking work. He jus t never had the ar t is t ic view. On my mother’s s ide I ’m middle European of diverse origins, I suppose mainly Slavic.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, what happened? You had th is exhibi t ion at the Art is ts Gal lery at – what? Nineteen or thereabouts?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Nineteen or twenty, around that t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did that help your parents’ in terest in your work?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That was jus t one more event?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Jus t another event, yes. Well, they came to see i t and tr ied to unders tand what their son was get t ing in to. They’ve always been sympathet ic. I mean they’re real ly pret ty good to me. I had a brother who died before I was born, and then being an only chi ld and my father did take me on t r ips. Actual ly now looking back on i t , he did have a real sense of a kind of, you know, American idea of the landscape and that sor t of th ing; but in an American way; I mean he loved to t ravel…

PAUL CUMMINGS: See something new.

ROBERT SMITHSON: He hi tchhiked around the country, rode the rai ls and everything when he was younger; he sor t of had that feel ing for scenic beauty, that sor t of th ing. But couldn’ t unders tand modern ar t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: He l iked Biers tadt paint ings.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. That sor t of th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, how much of the country have you t raveled around? I know you’ve been here, there, and everywhere.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I sor t of concentrated on i t in my chi ldhood and adolescence. Well, my f i rs t major t r ip was when I was eight years old and my father and mother took me around the ent i re Uni ted States. Right af ter World War I I we traveled across the Pennsylvania Turnpike out through the Black Hil ls and the Badlands, through Yel lowstone, up in to the Redwood Forests, then down the Coast, and then over to the Grand Canyon. I was eight years old and i t made a big impression on me. I used to give l ike l i t t le post card shows. I remember I ’d se t up a l i t t le booth and but a hole in i t and put post cards up in to the s lot and show al l the kids al l these post cards.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh. The post cards you picked up on your t ravels?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And then on my mother’s s ide i t ’s obscure. Her maiden name was Duke from Austr ia, that area. Her father was a wheelmaker.

PAUL CUMMINGS: There’s a s t rong craf t t radi t ion behind, you know, using materials and making objects.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I guess there is something to that.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Let ’s see, you went to the Brooklyn Museum School at one point?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I got a scholarship there too. I went there on Saturdays. I didn’ t go there too long. I t was kind of far to go there. I went to l i fe c lasses with Isaac Soyer again; wel l, mainly we used to gather at his place. I can’ t remember where his s tudio was – i t was up near Central Park. We’d do sketching. I th ink I went there for maybe about three months.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That’s to the museum or to the sketch class?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I t was jus t too far. I don’ t know – I didn’ t real ly…

PAUL CUMMINGS: How was the Brooklyn Museum? Did you l ike that?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. I can’ t say that I real ly responded that much. I th ink the s t rongest impact on me was the Museum of Natural His tory. My father took me there when I was around seven. I remember he took me f i rs t to the Metropoli tan which I found kind of dul l . I was very in terested in natural his tory.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Al l the animals and thing.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did they have the panoramas then? I don’ t remember…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, yes. I mean i t was jus t the whole spectacle. The whole thing – the dinosaurs made a t remendous impression on me. I th ink this in t ia l impact is s t i l l in my psyche. We used to go to the Museum of Natural His tory al l the t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That was your museum rather than the ar t museum?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Were your parents in terested in that, or was i t because you were in terested?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes – wel l, my father l ike i t . My father sor t of l iked the dioramas and things of that sor t because of their painstaking real i ty and that sor t of th ing. Looking back on that, I th ink he took me to the Metropoli tan thinking that that was the Muserum of Natural His tory – I could be wrong there but I th ink I can remember his saying: oh, wel l, we can go to an in terest ing museum now. For me i t was much more in terest ing. Then from that point on I jus t got very in terested in natural his tory. At one point I thought of becoming ei ther a f ie ld natural is t of a zoologis t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you go to col lege anywhere?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I didn’ t th ink you did. So what happened then? In the late f i f t ies…

ROBERT SMITHSON: The late f i f t ies were very curious.

PAUL CUMMINGS: When did you move to New York?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Right af ter I got out of the Army – which was when, Nancy? I

moved to New York in 1957. Then I hi tchhiked al l around the country. I went out West. I v is i ted the Hopi Indian Reservat ion and found that very exci t ing. Looking back on that, qui te by chance, I was priv i leged to see a rain dance at Arabi. I guess I was about eighteen or nineteen.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Had you been to the museum of the American Indian ever?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You hadn’t? So i t was a new experience.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, you see, I know about Gallup, New Mexico. I knew about and made a special point of going to the Canyon de Chel ly. I had seen photographs of that. I hiked the length of Canyon de Chel ly at that point and s lept out. I t was the period of the beat generat ion. When I got back On the Road was out, and al l those people were around, you know, Jack Kerouac and Al len Ginsberg, both of whom I met. And Hubert Selby, I knew him rather wel l; I used to vis i t him out in Brooklyn and we’d l is ten to jazz and that sor t of th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I never knew him in al l that crowd of people. I knew a lot of those.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, he was a s t range person. I mean you wouldn’ t th ink of him real ly as – there was nothing weird about him. In fact he bi l led himsel f as an Eisenhower Republican, l ived in a highrise. He had lung trouble, I th ink he had only a quarter of a lung lef t or something. At one point he t r ied to commit suicide. I don’ t know – i t jus t got very bad. He was t ry ing to get his book published at that t ime. The way I met him was I was si t t ing at a table at the Cedar Bar. I had read a chapter f rom his book and I praised i t to, I th ink i t was Jonathan Wil l iams of the Black Mountain Press. I t jus t happened that Hubert was si t t ing there (Cubby as he was cal led) and – wel l, of course he was very taken with the fact that somebody l iked his s tory that much.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you f ind the Cedar? Was that jus t through wandering around the Vi l lage?

ROBERT SMITHSON: How did I f ind Cedar? No, I th ink people jus t sor t of gravi tated to i t . Tenth Street was very act ive. I can’ t remember exact ly how I discovered i t . But I th ink perhaps, again, through Dick Bel lamy. Miles Fors t, Dody Mul ler, people l ike that, you know. I know Edward Avedisian too at that t ime. And Dick Baker who worked for Grove Press and was a Zen monk.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, Real ly!

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I didn’ t know that. You never showed in Tenth Street, did you, in any of those gal ler ies?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. By the that t ime I was even more confused, I mean I had a cer tain ini t ia l k ind of in tui t ive talent in terms of s izing up the si tuat ion and being inf luenced. But I had to work my way out of that. I t took me three years. And then I th ink I was exposed to Europe through my show at the George Lester Gal lery in Rome which had a t remendous impact on me.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did that happen?

ROBERT SMITHSON: As I said, that paint ing Quicksand that was shown at the Alan Gallery; he offered me a show on the basis of that. At that t ime I real ly wasn’ t in terested in doing abstract ions. I was actual ly in terested in re l igion, you know, and archetypal th ings, I guess in terested in Europe and unders tanding the relat ionship of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you go to Europe then?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I went to Europe in 1959.

PAUL CUMMINGS: For how long?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I was in Rome for about three months. And I v is i ted Siena. I was very in terested in the Byzantine. As a resul t I remember wandering around through these old baroque churches and going through these labyrin thine vaults. At the same t ime I was reading people l ike the Wil l iam Burroughs. I t a l l seemed to coincide in a curious kind of way.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, i t was very much of what was happening in those days.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What other things were you reading besides Burroughs?

ROBERT SMITHSON: T. S. El l io t then had a big inf luence on me, of course, af ter going to Rome. So I had to wrest le with that part icular problem of t radi t ion and Anglo-Cathol icism, the whole number. And then I met Nancy – about what year was that?

PAUL CUMMINGS: The show at the George Lester Gal lery was in 1961 or something.

ROBERT SMITHSON: 1961 i t was. I ’m sorry. I ’m thinking of the Art is ts Gal lery.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was i t l ike being a young American in Rome and having a show?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t was very exci t ing to me. I was very in terested in Rome i tsel f . I jus t fe l t I wanted to be a part of that s i tuat ion, or wanted to unders tand i t .

PAUL CUMMINGS: In what way? What were the quali t ies?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I wanted to unders tand the roots of – I guess you could cal l i t Western civi l izat ion real ly, and how rel igion had inf luenced ar t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What got you in terested or involved in re l igion at that point? I f ind that in terest ing in the context of the people you knew, because i t wasn’ t general ly something they were al l that in terested in.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, in a funny way there was a kind of aspect to i t . I guess I was reading people – l ike I read Nightwood, T. S. El l io t, and Ezra Pound. There was a sense of European his tory that was very prevalent. Also I was very inf luenced by Wydham Lewis.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, real ly? But Pound is not part icular ly involved with…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, he was in terested in a kind of not ion of what Western ar t grew out of and what happened to i t . I mean i t was a way of discovering the his tory of Western ar t in terms of the Renaissance and what preceded i t , especial ly the Byzantine.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, you mean the r i tual and the ideas and al l those things?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. That sor t of th ing.

NANCY HOLT: Also psychology, psychoanalysis…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I th ink a kind of Jungian – I th ink even in part Jackson Pol lock’s in terest in archetypal s t ructures. I was jus t k ind of in terested in the façade of Cathol icism and that kind of bui lding and that sor t of th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But were you in terested in Jung or Freud part icular ly?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I was at that t ime.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You read their wri t ings and thing?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you ever go into analysis?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t didn’ t go that far?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you f ind that those act iv i t ies worked for you? Did they answer quest ions for you? Or did they jus t pose new ones?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I th ink I got to unders tand, le t ’s say, the mainspring, you know, of what European ar t was rooted in prior to the growth of Modernism. And i t was jus t very important for me to unders tand that. And once I unders tood that I could unders tand Modernism and I could make my own moves. I would say that I began to funct ion as a conscious ar t is t in around 1964-65. I th ink I s tar ted doing works that were mature. I would say that prior to the 1964-65 period i t was a kind of groping, invest igat ing period.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I ’m curious about the show at the George Lester Gal lery.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I did three paint ings that I th ink were probably the best. They were sor t of semi abstract ions based on a rough grid and roughly based on – one was cal led The Inferno, another was cal led Purgatory, another was cal led Paradise.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Dante-esque.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t was Dante -esque, but done in terms of – i t was a rough ir regular grid type paint ing with sor t of f ragments of faces and things embedded in this grid, and other th ings were king of iconic, tending toward a kind of Byzantine re lat ionship. I was also very much in terested in the theories of T. E. Hulme; as I said, that whole circ le, that whole prewar circ le of Modernism.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What ar t is ts were you in terested in at that point?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I real ly wasn’ t – I was real ly in terested in the past at that point. I would say that ini t ia l ly -

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t was a kind of modern l i terature in old ar t.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Ini t ia l ly – wel l, l ike this was when I was nineteen – the impact was Newman, Pol lock, Dubuffe t, Rauschenberg, de Kooning; even Alan Davie who I had seen I th ink at the Viviano Gallery; the whole New York school of paint ing. I mean I fe l t very much at home with that when I was in my late teens. But then I rejected that in favor of a more t radi t ional approach. And this las ted l ike f rom maybe 1960-1963.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Why do you think you rejected those things that you …?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I jus t fe l t that they were too – they real ly didn’ t unders tand … Firs t of al l , anthropomorphism, which had constant ly been lurking in Pol luck and de Kooning, I always fe l t that a problem. I always thought i t was somehow seething underneath al l those masses of paint. And even Newman in his later work s t i l l referred to a cer tain kind of Judeo-Chris t ian kind of value. I wasn’ t that much in terested in a sor t of Bauhaus formalis t v iew. I was in terested in this kind of archetypal gut s i tuat ion that was based on kind of primordial needs and the unconscious depths. And the real breakthrough came once I was able to overcome, I would say, this lurking pagan

re l igious anthropomorphism. I was able to get in to crys tal l ine s t ructures in terms of s t ructures of matter and that sor t of th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What precipi tated that t ransi t ion, do you th ink?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, I jus t fe l t that Europe had exhausted i ts cul ture. I suppose the f i rs t ink l ings of a more Marxis t v iew began to arise rather than t ry ing to re-es tabl ish t radi t ional ar t work in terms of the El io t -Pound-Wydham-Lewis s i tuat ion. I jus t fe l t there was a cer tain naiveté in the American painters – good as they were.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But I mean in a visual way, or a conceptual way?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Because I gave up paint ing around 1963 and began to work plast ics in a kind of crys tal l ine way. I began to develop s t ructures based on a part icular concern with the elements of the material i tse l f . But th is was essent ia l ly abstract and devoid of any kind of mythological content.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Also there was no f igurat ive over tone to i t .

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, I had completely got ten r id of that problem. I fe l t that Jackson Pol lock never real ly unders tood that. And al though I admire him st i l l , I s t i l l th ink that was something that was always eating him up inside.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But i t ’s in terest ing because the development away from the t radi t ional kind of imagery and yet an involvement with natural materials…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, that comes – I would say that begins to sur face in 1965-66. That’s where I real ly began to get in to that. I mean that I consider my sor t of emergence as what I cal l a conscious ar t is t . Pr ior to that was my s t ruggle to get in to another realm. In 1964, 1965, 1966 I met people who were more compatible with my view. I met Sol LeWit t, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd. At that t ime we showed at the Daniels Gal lery; I bel ieve i t was in 1965. I was doing crystal l ine type works and my early in terest in geology and earth sciences began to asser t i tse l f over the whole cul tural over lay of Europe. So that I had got ten that out of my sys tem. This whole other period represents a very … That I consider mysel f mature - -

PAUL CUMMINGS: Out of chaos comes - -

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, out of the defunct, I th ink, c lass cul ture of Europe I developed something that was in t r insical ly my own and rooted to my own experience in America.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Have you been back to Europe since then?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I have been back to Europe. And I did this piece in Europe. I mean the Dutch piece of course – The Broken Circ le – I consider a major piece. And when I consider that in terms of what I ’m now interested in which is… I mean around this t ime 1965-66 I was asked to give a talk, to be on a panel up at the Yale with Brian O’Doherty and John Hightower and Paul Weiss. The topic was ar t in the ci ty. At that t ime my ideas of crys tal l ine s t ructure and lat t ices and that k ind of th ing had developed. And I had met people who were sympathet ic to that view and who were jus t beginning to emerge themselves. And as a resul t of that I got a job with Tibbet ts, Abbot, McCarthy and Strat ton as an ar t is t consul tant. That was for the Dal las -For t Worth Airpor t, which never came into exis tence. They eventual ly los t the contract. I would go there f rom month to month and talk to the archi tects. This got me more and more – I mean, in other words, the kind of abstract works that I was working with there were essent ia l ly kind of rooted in a kind of crys tal l ine type of mapping. And then this mapping jus t extended i tsel f to a more global sense and I got involved in mapping si tes, and then, you know, the emergence of the landscape.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, what led you to the crys tals? When did i t become apparent that that’s what i t was you were working with?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, once I disposed of al l the lurking anthropomorphisms.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was i t about the crys tal l ine s t ructures that you picked up on?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I th ink i t goes back to my ear l ier chi ldhood responses, you know, l ike a direct response to – I have always been in terested in col lect ion rocks and I did have a rather large rock col lect ion. The f i rs t th ing I wrote was in 1966 for Harper’s Bazaar. The ar t ic le was cal led “The Crystal Land” and i t was about a journey to New Jersey to a rock quarry with Donald Judd.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, what’s the name of the place out there?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Montclair.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Isn’ t there a famous rock place in New Jersey?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Frankl in Furnace. That’s where I did one of my nonsi tes.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, th is is l ike Phase One sor t of background. You know, in other words, what I consider my fu l f i l lment would be another tape.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Right. Okay.

END OF TAPE 1- SIDE 1

PAUL CUMMINGS: This is s ide 2. I t ’s Ju ly 19, 1972. Anyway, would you l ike to s tar t th is s ide and say something about Wil l iam Carlos Wil l iams?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, th is took place I th ink in ei ther 1958 or 1959. Wil l iam Carlos Wil l iams was going to do an in troduct ion for I rv ing Layton’s book of poems. So I went out to Rutherford. And i t wasn’ t for an in terview. He was in pret ty bad shape at that t ime, he was kind of pals ied. But he was rather in terest ing. Once he found out that we weren’ t going to be doing any ar t ic les he was pret ty open. Sophie Wil l iams was there too. He said that he enjoyed meeting ar t is ts more than wri ters.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, real ly? Why?

ROBERT SMITHSON: He jus t found them more in terest ing to talk to.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Contrast, maybe.

ROBERT SMITHSON: As i t turned out, he had a whole col lect ion of paint ings by Marsden Hart ley, Demuth, Ben Shahn; and also paint ings by Hart Crane’s boy fr iend, which I thought was in terest ing. He bought them -

PAUL CUMMINGS: I can’ t remember who that was.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I can’ t remember his name ei ther. He talked about Ezra Pound, which I thought was in terest ing apropos of al l the controversy about Ezra Pound. And i t turned out that when Pound was giving his broadcasts in I ta ly he said something to the ef fect that “Old Doc Wil l iams in Rutherford, New Jersey wil l unders tand what I mean.” So the very next day the FBI descended on his house and he had to explain that he wasn’ t involved in that k ind of pol i t ical at t i tude. And he went on to ta lk about the other poets. He seemed somewhat estranged from them. Let me see what else. Oh, he didn’ t seem to have much l ik ing for T. S. El io t. He said he jus t remembers Hart Crane invi t ing him over to New York for al l his fairy part ies; that sor t of th ing. And what else? – Well, he showed us al l these paint ings. There was a paint ing that somehow reminded me of a paint ing by Duchamp, you know, that’s wrong wrong book. Demuth did l ike two dogs running around sni f f ing each others asses. He talked a lot about Al len Ginsberg coming out at al l hours of the night. And having to spring poets out there.

Allen Ginsberg comes from Paterson, New Jersey. I guess the Pat terson area is where I had a lot of my contact with quarr ies and I th ink that is somewhat embedded in my psyche. As a kid I used to go and prowl around al l those quarr ies. And of course that f igured s t rongly in Paterson. I read that I was in terested in that, especial ly in this one nice part of Paterson where the – i t showed al l the s t rata levels under Paterson. Sort of a proto-conceptual ar t, you might say. Later on I wrote an ar t ic le for Ar t form on Passaic which is a ci ty on the Passaic River south of Paterson. In a way I th ink i t ref lects that whole area. He did have a kind of sense of that kind of New Jersey landscape.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Was he amused at the idea that you were one of his chi ldren in a sense?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, yes, he said he remembered me, he remembered the Smithsons. He was amused at that actual ly, yes. He was jus t very, very … There are cer tain things that I know I’m forget t ing. But i t was a kind of exci t ing thing for me at that t ime. And what else? Where else were we?

PAUL CUMMINGS: I ’m curious also, as I said, about the rel igion and the theology since i t was mentioned in so many kind of oblique ways on the other s ide of the tape. Did you have a very s t r ic t re l igious upbringing?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. Actual ly I was very skeptical even through high school. In high school they thought I was a Communis t; and an atheis t, which I was actual ly. That problem always seemed to come up. In fact, whi le I was s t i l l going to high school, a f r iend of mine, Danny Donohue, and I did a joint project, a tape recording, for a psychology class/ And i t was essent ia l ly a quest ioning of the premises of re l igion drawn mainly f rom Freud and H. G. Wells.

PAUL CUMMINGS: That’s a good combination.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I guess I was always in terested in kind of or igins and primordial beginnings, you know, the archetypal nature of th ings. And I guess this was always haunting me al l the way through unt i l about 1959 and 1960 when I got in terested in Cathol icism, I th ink, actual ly though T. S. El io t and through that range of th inking. T. E. Hulme sor t of led me to an in terest in Byzantine and his not ions of abstract ion as a kind of counterpoint to the Humanism of the late Renaissance. By and large that sor t of at t racted me. So that my in terest was mainly – I was sor t of in terested I guess in a kind of iconic imagery that I fe l t was lurking under a lot of abstract ions at the t ime buried, you know…

PAUL CUMMINGS: In Pol lock.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Buried in Pol lock and in De Kooning and in Newman, and to that extent s t i l l is. My f i rs t at tempts were in the area of paint ing. But even in the Art is ts Gal lery show there were paint ing carrying t i t les l ike White Dinosaur, which I th ink carr ied through r ight now, a simi lar kind of preoccupation. But I hadn’ t developed a conscious idea of abstract ions. I was s t i l l real ly wrest l ing with a kind of anthropomorphic imagery. Then when I went to Rome I was exposed to al l the church archi tecture and I enjoyed al l the labyrin thine passageways, the sor t of dusty decrepi tude of the whole thing. I mean i t ’s probably a very romantic discovery, that whole world. I mean I had jus t faced mainly prior to the t r ip to Rome the New York ar t world and what I was developing there. So this was sor t of an encounter with European his tory as a nightmare, you know.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Al l of i t at once.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I was very much – in other words, my disposi t ion was toward the rat ional, my disposi t ion was toward the Byzantine. But I was affected by

the baroque in a cer tain way. These two things kind of c lashed.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Yes. But in the sense of forms and colors and images rather than the ideas that they represented?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I mean I never real ly could bel ieve in any kind of redemptive si tuat ion. I was fascinated also with sor t of Gnost ic heresies, that sor t of th ing, Manicheism and the dualis t ic heresies of the East and how they inf i l t ra ted in to the…

PAUL CUMMINGS: But in what sense? – as abstract ions? Or as things applicable to…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I th ink i t was a kind of cosmology. I guess I was in terested in some kind of world view. I had a rather f ragmented idea of what the world was about. So I guess i t was a matter of jus t taking al l these pieces of fair ly recent civi l izat ions and piecing them together, you know, mainly beginning with primi t ive Chris t iani ty and then going on up through the Renaissance. And then i t became a matter of jus t working my out f rom underneath the heaps of European his tory to f ind my own origins.

PAUL CUMMINGS: So i t was real ly the ideas rather than the r i tuals of any of these things?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, I was sor t of fascinated vu the r i tual aspect of i t as wel l. I mean the ceremonial, almost choreographed aspect of the whole thing , you know, the grandeur…

PAUL CUMMINGS: The sounds and l ights.

ROBERT SMITHSON: There was a kind of grotesqueness that appealed to me. As I said, whi le I was in Rome I was reading Wil l iam Borroughs’ Naked Lunch and the imagery in that book corresponded in a way to a kind of grotesque massive accumulat ion of al l k inds of l ike reject ive r i tuals. There was something about the passage of t ime, the notion of the r i tual as being defunct actual ly in terested me more, you know, the kind of th ing about erect ing these si tuat ions fascinated me. And there was also a kind of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: you mean bui lding monuments and…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. The way Burroughs sor t of br ings in a kind of savage Mayan – Aztec kind of imagery to that; yet at the same t ime there was always an element of a kind of over t corrupt ion surrounding the whole thing. I t was a very s t range combination of inf luences also s t i l l coming from the range of Mallarme and Gustave Moreau and that k ind of th ing was also s t i l l p laguing me.

PAUL CUMMINGS: A kind of decadence?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. A kind of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: And the end-of - the-century elegance.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Which I fe l t was very much in Burroughs. So i t wasn’ t so much a matter of bel ief or tes t of fai th or something l ike that. I t was a kind of fascinat ion with these great accumulat ions of sculpture and kind of labyrin thine catacomb kind of thing that…

PAUL CUMMINGS: You mean why they were bui l t and what the purposes were?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I mean I l iked sor t of the uselessness of them, And also there were these great carvings and drapery out of rose marble and things l ike that with gold skeletons, you know, underneath. I t was jus t a very…

PAUL CUMMINGS: There seems to be a curious kind of macabre over lay on some of these things?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I guess at that t ime there was. I t took me a whi le to work out of that preoccupation. A kind of savage splendor, you know.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What has supplanted that?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, gradual ly I recognized an area of abstract ion that was real ly rooted in crys tal s t ructure. In fact, I guess the f i rs t piece that I did was in 1964. I t was cal led the Enantiomorphic Chambers. And I th ink that was the piece that real ly f reed me from al l these preoccupations with his tory; and I was jus t dealing with grids and planes and empty surfaces. The crys tal l ine forms suggested mapping. And mapping -

PAUL CUMMINGS: Mapping in what way? I mean, how do they…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: In other words, i f we think of an abstract paint ing, for ins tance, l ike Agnes Mart in’s, there’s a cer tain kind of grid there that looks l ike a map without any countr ies on i t .

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, I see.

ROBERT SMITHSON: So I began to see the grid as sor t of a kind of mental construct of physical matter, and my concern for the physical s tar ted to grow. And r ight along I always had an in terest in geology as wel l.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Was there a conf l ic t of in terest development there?

ROBERT SMITHSON: A conf l ic t?

PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you want to go into geology as an act iv i ty?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, I th ink the geology sor t of developed out of my perception as an ar t is t . I t wasn’ t predicated on any kind of scient i f ic need. I t was kind of an aesthet ic. Also the ent i re his tory of the West was swal lowed up in a preoccupation with not ions of pre-his tory and the great pre -his tor ic epics s tar t ing with the age of rocks and going up, you know, through the…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Right. Al l those marvelous again with di f ferent colors and – r ight.

ROBERT SMITHSON: The Tr iassic and Jurassic and al l those dif ferent periods sor t of subsumed al l the ef for ts of these civi l izat ions that had interested in me I guess.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, what was happening jus t pr ior to the clar i f icat ion of the grid system idea? Had you continued paint ing? Or did you s top paint ing? Or were you making things that were a combination?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I sor t of s topped. I did drawings actual ly.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What were they l ike?

ROBERT SMITHSON: They were kind of phantasmagorical drawings of kind of cosmological worlds somewhat between Blake and – I ’m trying to think – oh, a kind of Boschian imagery, you know. They were jus t sor t of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: There were s t i l l f igurat ive over tones?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, very much, yes. Very defini te ly. They were sor t of based on jus t iconic si tuat ions. I th ink I made those drawings around 1960-61. They deal t wi th sor t of expl ici t images l ike, you know, the ci ty; they were kind of monstrous as wel l, you know, l ike great Moloch f igures.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Were they large?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, they were very smal l.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Done in what kind of material?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Penci l and paper.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Very complicated? Very t radi t ional?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, they were sor t of l ike – they were sor t of rambling. They consis ted of many f igures sor t of involved in a kind of way. But jus t in penci l and…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, what did that do then af ter the summation of al l that…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: That f reed me from – the whole notion of anthropomorphism was done away with in that. I got that out of my system, you might say. They were somewhat l ike cartouches.

PAUL CUMMINGS: And the grids appeared in…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes – wel l, i t was more of a crys tal l ine thing, more of a t r iangulated kind of s i tuat ion. I s tar ted using plast ics. I made f la t plast ic paint ings. I have one in the f ront room that I can show you. Then these plast ics -

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you pick plast ics? – because that’s a shir t f rom penci l and paper to…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, actual ly there was a kind of in ter im period there when I was jus t doing mainly a kind of col lage wri t ing si tuat ion. I did kind of wri t ing paint ings, I guess you’d cal l i t , you know, I was jus t wri t ing but they included jus t past ing, l ike I would do - -

PAUL CUMMINGS: Jus t l ike Burroughs cut out and paste the poetry he did?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes – wel l, not exact ly. They were sor t of jus t – I would take l ike a magazine that had, oh, a lot of boats in i t and then jus t paste al l these boats on a piece of wood or something l ike that. There was a lot of nebulous s tuf f I was doing then.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Test ing materials?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, I know what I was doing. Actual ly there was a show at the Castel lane Gallery which I suppose sums i t a l l up to a great extent. For ins tance, I was also doing things – I s tar ted working from diagrams. I would take l ike an evolut ionary chart and then paint i t somewhat in a kind of Johns- ian manner, I guess; sor t of scient i f ic diagrams and paint those. But i t was a very kind of confused period around 1961 or so.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was the Castel lane Show?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t was jus t a lot of these paint ings of – not only paint ings but also – oh, i t was a curious mélange of th ings – I took a s tuf fed pigeon and took i t apart and pasted i t on a board. Things l ike that. I took pickle jars and made up specimens and labeled them with curious scient i f ic names. Then I s tar ted jus t past ing al l these simi lar photographs. I did a series of chemicals. I ’ l l show you…

PAUL CUMMINGS: I see.

ROBERT SMITHSON: And then there’s another one. I ’ l l get that one, too. This was the kind of paint ing I did. You see, there’s a kind of… Well, th is is something later; th is is when I worked for Tibbet ts, Abbott, McCarthy, and Strat ton in 1964.

PAUL CUMMINGS: This is one of your s tudies for the airport?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes, I jus t saw a paral le l in terms of th is kind of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Those are f ree forms.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Very sor t of organic. I guess there was a tug of war going on between the organic and the crys tal l ine.

PAUL CUMMINGS: And the crys tal won.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes – wel l, actual ly I th ink they kind of met – a kind of dialect ic occurred, you know, later on so – both areas were resolved, you know.

PAUL CUMMINGS: The Castel lane Show was in 1962. When did you get involved with the Dwan Gallery? Was that soon af ter?

ROBERT SMITHSON: That was in about 1965 I’d say.

PAUL CUMMINGS: So i t was a couple of years later, about three years later.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What happened in that period of t ime?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I got marr ied actual ly, and that took up a lot of my t ime. I don’ t know – i t seemed that I real ly didn’ t do much of anything. I did s tar t to wri te then. I was wri t ing around that t ime, but I real ly wasn’ t br inging things together. I was wri t ing a lot of notes. I real ly didn’ t do that much work.

PAUL CUMMINGS: At one point I know i t seems that you s tar ted jus t wri t ing ar t ic les every month or every other month for various publicat ions.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. They sor t of encourage your own… Well, the f i rs t ar t ic le was published in 1966.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you get involved with the Dwan Gallery? Did Virginia f ind you, or did you f ind her? Or how did that happen?

ROBERT SMITHSON: How did that happen, again? Well, th is is what happened: I met Ad Reinhardt in 1965. Well, actual ly in 1963-64 I was doing these plast ic paint ings, these crys tal l ine paint ings and I s tar ted to get more in to the serial s t ructures that I showed at Dwan in 1966. Ad Reinhardt asked me along with Robert Morr is to help organize a show at Dwan – the Ten Show. Then I did a piece cal led Alogon, the one which the Whitney owns now. I t consis ts of – wel l, in ef fect i t was l ike the seven inver ted s taircases. That was in the Ten Show. Also around that t ime I had a lot of dialogues with Sol Lewit t and Donald Judd. A lot of th ings began to pul l together at that t ime. Pr ior to my going with the Dwan Gallery I showed the Enantiomorphic Chambers that Howard Lipman owns. That impressed Virginia Dwan. Right af ter I showed in the Ten Show she asked me to be in the gal lery. And at the same t ime, actual ly in 1965, I had given a talk at Yale with Brian O’Doherty and John Hightower on Art in the City. I guess a lot of my thinking about crys tal l ine s t ructures came through there because I was sor t of discussing the whole ci ty in terms of crys tal l ine network. An archi tect f rom Tibbet ts, Abbott, McCarthy and Strat ton was si t t ing in the audience and he asked me i f I would l ike to part ic ipate in the bui lding of the Dal las -For t Worth Airport, you know, jus t in terms of t ry ing to f igure out what an airport is. So I invented this job for mysel f as ar t is t -consul tant. So for about a year and a half f rom 1965 though 1966 I went there and talked with the archi tects. And that’s where the mapping and the in tui t ions in terms of the crys tal s t ructures real ly took hold in terms of large land masses where one is dealing with grids superimposed on large land masses. So that the inkl ings of the earthworks were there.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What did you do with the archi tects, what kind of conversat ions did you have with them? What kind of act iv i ty were you able to do with them?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, to an extent they were – I mean most of the bui lding process was done through computers. I was more or less jus t looking at the layout of the air f ie ld. My f inal proposal was something cal led “aerial ar t” which would be earthworks on the f r inges of the air f ie ld that you would see from the air.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Flying over.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I mean they would provide me with al l the mapping material. And we had interest ing discussions. I made models of possible airpor ts. But I became less and less in terested in the actual s t ructure of the bui lding and more in terested in the process of the bui lding and al l the dif ferent prel iminary engineering things. For ins tance, l ike the boring holes to take earth samples. I la ter wrote an ar t ic le cal led "Toward the Development of an Air Terminal", which was al l speculat ion on the dif ferent aspects of bui lding. So I was sor t of in terested in the prel iminary aspects of bui lding.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Were you with them toward the end of bui lding part icular sculptures or earthworks or th ings? Or were you real ly involved with them on a theoret ical k ind of…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: On a theoret ical level. In 1966 I showed a model at the Dwan Gallery r ight af ter my show, a model for a tar pool in a gravel enclosure. And I would say that i t was mainly theoret ical at that t ime. But r ight along, r ight f rom that point – wel l, around 1966 there was an inkl ing or an in tui t ion that earthworks might be an in terest ing idea to get in to. I was t ry ing to f i t together this… I had also suggested to the archi tectural company to le t Robert Morr is and Carl Andre and Sol LeWit t do something, and they each presented proposals which I included in the aerial ar t program. Morris proposed that…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Oh, the green?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And I wanted to do a spiral actual ly, a t r iangulated spiral made out of concrete. And then there were also other projects – there was another spiral of a kind of ref lect ing pool, in other words, a basin.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Right. A long trench.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Right. Ins tead of jus t -

PAUL CUMMINGS: Where did Bob Morris come in? Where did you meet him?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I met him during the meetings for the Ten Show. I guess that was the f i rs t encounter. Then I met Don Judd through Dan Flavin. I did show a l ight piece with mirrors in 1963, my only l ight piece; i t was a kind of curious work. I made i t in 1963. I showed i t in an exhibi t ion cal led "Current Ar t " where I met Dan Flavin. Dan was very f r iendly with Donald Judd. Af ter that show I remember Dan Flavin came over here and rapped al l night. And one thing led to another. And then there was this l i t t le gal lery cal led the Daniels Gal lery which Dan Graham was involved in.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Right. For about a year, wasn’ t i t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And that sor t of operated as a kind of catalys t. Sol LeWit t showed there. Al l the people f rom Park P lace. There was jus t a lot of energy generat ing around that t ime and a lot of peoples’ works were real ly s tar t ing to manifes t themselves. I t was a very energetic period, and an important period.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did your associat ion with the Dwan Gallery help you? Or wasn’ t i t a help?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, I th ink i t was a great help. Virginia Dwan somehow never imposed any kind of preconceived value on what was going to happen there so that

the gal lery in a way funct ioned as a kind of developmental area. You know, there was…

PAUL CUMMINGS: A lab where you could t ry out.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. We were going to look for land actual ly to do an outdoor show. I remember in 1967 I went down to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey with Virginia Dwan and Carl Andre and Robert Morr is. We looked around for property with the possible idea of doing some work on si tes. So Virginia was always sor t of involved on that level. I mean she was in terested in the development of the consciousness as much as anybody else.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You know, there were always things that sor t of seemed to be happening. You were in a "Pr imary Structures Show" at The Jewish Museum in 1966.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: As wel l as "Ar t in Process" at Finch for which you did a whole series of…

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, that piece I did up there was cal led The Cryosphere, and that essent ia l ly is hexagonal uni ts that were l inked up somehow in my mind with a notion of ice crys tals. Then I made a breakdown of the actual, almost a s tat is t ical analysis of the piece which I included in the catalogue, marking down the quali t ies of the paint that I had painted i t with.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, have you got ten involved in the mathematical s t ructure? Or the mathematical ideas in some of the crys tal l ine developed st ructures? Or not?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Not real ly – wel l, the t i t le Alogon – the piece that I showed in the Ten Show – comes from the Greek word which refers to the unnamable and the i r rat ional number. I mean there was always a sense of ordering, but I couldn’ t real ly cal l i t mathematical notat ion. But there was a consciousness of geometry that I worked from in a kind of in tui t ive way. But i t wasn’ t real ly in any way notat ional.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t wasn’ t l ike a theoret ical map or any sor t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No.

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t was real ly the shapes that were…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, i t was – yes – a kind of la t t ice s t ructure, you know, that could be conceived of in a kind of crys tal l ine way.

PAUL CUMMINGS: You know, jus t apropos of that one t i t le, how do you develop the t i t les for your th ings? Some of them seem to have very long names. Are they specif ic references?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, l ike the Enantiomorphic Chambers?

PAUL CUMMINGS: Yes.

ROBERT SMITHSON: That refers to two shapes that tend to mirror each other. In other words, l ike the lef t and r ight hand could be considered an enantiomorph. So i t was a kind of bi -polar not ion that comes out of crys tal s t ructure. They are two separate things that re late to each other. I would say that in the Enantiomorphic Chambers there is also the indication of a kind of dialect ical th inking that would emerge later very s t rongly in the nonsi tes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What about al l th is sor t of endless ser ies of group exhibi t ions that you’ve been in around the country over the years? Do you f ind them usefu l for you? Or are they jus t k ind of exposure?

ROBERT SMITHSON: At that t ime I thought there was a need for them. I th ink that there was something developing – this was in the mid-s ix t ies – that wasn’ t around before in terms of spaces and in terms of exhibi t ions. The works were making greater demands, I th ink, on in ter ior spaces. The smal l gal ler ies of the late f i f t ies were giving way to these large white rooms and they seemed to be a growing thing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But by the late six t ies everybody worked out of the bui ldings.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Well, that’s what happened. I mean there was always this element toward public ar t. But that s t i l l seemed to be l inked somewhat in l ike large works of sculpture that would be put in plazas in f ront of bui ldings. And I jus t became interested in s i tes. Well, I ’d always been in terested in… I guess in a sense these si tes had something to do with entropy. This is, I guess, one dominant theme that runs through. You might say that ear ly preoccupation with the ear ly civi l izat ions of the West was a kind of fascinat ion with the coming and going of th ings. And I brought that al l together in the f i rs t published ar t ic le that I did for Ar t forum which was the Entropy ar t ic le. And I became kind of in terested in kind of low prof i le landscapes, once again the quarry or the mining area which we cal l an entropic landscape, a kind of backwater or f r inge area. And so the entropy ar t ic le was fu l l of suggest ions of s i tes external to the gal lery s i tuat ion. There was al l k inds of material in there that broke down the usual confining aspect of academic ar t.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Yes. Something that you buy and take home.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. Now I see that that’s probably l ike, you know, this kind of sense of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: Also the material has no sense of scale, doing things that, you know, were out of doors, very large, almost competing, you know, with any archi tectural act iv i ty that might be around.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I was also in terested in a kind of suburban archi tecture: plain box bui ldings, shopping centers, that kind of sprawl. And I th ink this is what fascinated me in my ear l ier in terest with Rome, le t ’s say, jus t th is kind of col lect ion, this junk heap of his tory. But here we are confronted with a kind of consumer society. I know there is a sentence in “The Monuments of Passaic” where I said, “Hasn’ t Passaic replaced Rome was the Eternal City?” So there is th is kind of sense of an almost Vorhazian sense of passage of t ime and labyrin thine confusion that has a cer tain kind of order. And I guess I was looking for that order, a kind of i r rat ional order that jus t sor t of developed without any kind of design program.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But i t becomes, in a way, a kind of al ter ing of nature someplace, doesn’ t i t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, that’s something that I th ink in the course of one’s preoccupation with abstract ion, the tendency toward abstract ion, this is lodged, I th ink, in books l ike abstract ion and empathy where the tendency of the ar t is t was to exclude the whole problem of nature and jus t dwel l on these abstract mental images of f la t planes and empty void spaces and grids and single l ines and st r ipes, that sor t of th ing, tended to exclude the whole problem of nature. Right now l ike I feel that I am part of nature and that nature isn’ t real ly moral ly responsible. Nature has no moral i ty. So in that sense -

PAUL CUMMINGS: But how do you feel a part of i t? I get the feel ing that you have a dif ferent sensibi l i ty now than, say, in the late f i f t ies.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Oh, yes – wel l, to an extent. I jus t th ink i t ’s extended over greater s t re tches of t ime. In other words, i t ’s almost as though I was involved in a kind of personal archaeology al l though this, you know, jus t sor t of going through the layers

of, le t ’s say, the last 2,000 years of civi l izat ion and going back in to the more archaic civi l izat ions – the Egyptian and Mayan and Aztec civi l izat ions. I did t ravel. I hi tchhiked to Mexico when I was about nineteen and vis i ted the pyramids outs ide of Mexico City.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Was that because you knew about them? Or you wanted to go to Mexico?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I always had this urge – there was something about that kind of – al l th is civ i l ized refuse around.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Great hidden…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And then I guess that entropy ar t ic le was more about a kind of bui l t in obsolescence. In fact I remember I was impressed by Nabokov, who says that the fu ture is the obsolete in reverse. I t was jus t that I became more and more in terested in the s t rat i f icat ions and the layerings. I th ink i t had something to do with the way crys tals bui ld up too. I did a series of pieces cal led Stratas. Virginia Dwan’s cal led Glass Strata which is a lot of pieces of glass; i t ’s eight feet long by a foot wide, looks l ike a glass s taircase made out of inch- th ick glass; i t ’s very green, very dense and kind of layered up. And my wri t ing, I guess, proceeded that way. I thought of wri t ing more as a material to sor t of jus t put together than as a kind of analyt ic searchl ight, you know.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But did the wri t ing affect the development of th ings that you made?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t provided a kind of – in other words, language tended to inform my st ructures. In other words, I guess i f there was any kind of notat ion i t was a kind of l inguis t ic notat ion. So that actual ly I , together with Sol LeWit t, thought up the language shows at the Dwan Gallery. But I was in terested in language as a material ent i ty at that t ime, as something that wasn’ t involved in ideational values which a lot of conceptual ar t is ts become, you know, essent ial ly ideational and -

PAUL CUMMINGS: How do you mean as a material, though?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, jus t as prin ted matter. A kind of – the information which has a kind of physical presence for me rather than – I would construct my ar t ic les the way I would construct my work, you know, jus t sor t of…

PAUL CUMMINGS: I ’m curious about that. Does i t re late to – what? – to phi losophy? Or to semantics? Or do you f ind i t re lates to a more aesthet ic at t i tude toward ar t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, I th ink i t re lates probably to a kind of physical is t or material is t v iew of the world which of course leads one in to a kind of Marxis t v iew. So that the old idealisms of i r rat ional phi losophies began to diminish. Al though I was always in terested in Borges’ wri t ings and the way he would use sor t of lef tover remnants of phi losophy.

PAUL CUMMINGS: When did you get in terested in him?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Around 1965. That kind of taking, le t ’s say, a discarded system and using i t , you know, as a kind of armature. I guess this has always been my kind of world view.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, do you think i t ’s so much the system that’s the valuable aspect, or the ut i l izat ion of i t?

ROBERT SMITHSON: No, the system real ly isn’ t…

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t doesn’ t count?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I t ’s jus t a convenience, you might say. I t ’s jus t another

construct ion on the mires of th ings that have already been constructed. So that my thinking, I guess, became increasingly dialect ical. I was s t i l l working with the resolut ion of the organic and the crys tal l ine, and that seemed resolved in dialect ics for me. And so I created the dialect ic of s i te and nonsi te. The nonsi te exis ts as a kind of deep three-dimensional abstract map that points to a specif ic s i te of the surface of the earth. And that’s designated by a kind of mapping procedure. And these places are not dest inat ions; they’re kind of backwaters or f r inge areas.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How do you arr ive at those dif ferent areas?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I don’ t know – I guess i t ’s jus t a kind of tendency toward a primordial consciousness, a kind of tendency toward the prehis tor ic af ter digging through the his tor ies.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But do you work f rom, say a large map? Or do you work f rom having been in that part of the world in a way?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, a lot of the nonsi tes are in New Jersey. I th ink that those landscapes embedded themselves in my consciousness at a very ear ly date, so that in a sense I was beginning to l ike sor t of make archaeological t r ips in to the recent past to Bayonne, New Jersey.

PAUL CUMMINGS: So in a sense i t was a real place that then became abstracted in to a nonsi te?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. And which then ref lected the confinement of the gal lery space so that the si te i tse l f was open and al though the nonsi te designates the si te, the si te i tse l f is open and real ly unconfined and constant ly being changed. And then the thing was to bring these two things together. And I guess to a great extent that culminated in the Spiral Je t ty. But there are other smal ler works that preceded that – the invest igat ions in Yucatan.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did that come about? Was that again through…?

ROBERT SMITHSON: I guess the same kind of – you know, here was a kind of al ien world, a world that couldn’ t real ly be comprehended on any rat ional level; you know, the jungle had grown up over these vanished civi l izat ions. I was in terested in the f r inges around these areas.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What do you mean, f r inges?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, l ike these backwater s i tes again, l ike maybe a smal l quarry, a burnt -out f ie ld, a sand bank, a remote is land. And I found that I was dealing not so much with the center of th ings but with the peripheries. So that I became very in terested in that whole dialogue between, le t 's say, the circumference and the middle and how those two things operated together.

PAUL CUMMINGS: But most of the si tes are not in metropoli tan areas, are they? They're usual ly in the country.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Most of them are in New Jersey; there's one in Bayonne, there's one in Edgewater, on in Frankl in Furnace, one in the Pine Barrens. Since I grew up in New Jersey I would say that I was saturated with a consciousness of that. And then, s t rangely enough, the other ones- I did a double nonsi tes in Cali fornia and Nevada, so that I went f rom one coast to the other. The last nonsi te actual ly is one that involves coal and there the si te belongs to the Carboniferous Period, so i t no longer exis ts; the si te becomes completely buried again. There's no topographical reference. I t 's submerged reference based on hypothet ical land formations f rom the Carboniferous Period. The coal comes from somewhere in the Ohio and Kentucky area, but the si te is uncer tain. That was the last nonsi te; you know, that was the end of that. So I wasn' t

dealing with the land surfaces.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did you develop the idea of the si tes and nonsi tes, you know, as opposed to bui lding specif ic objects?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, I began to see things - I began to quest ion very seriously the whole not ion of Gestal t , the thing in i tse l f , specif ic objects. I began to see things in a more re lat ional way. In other words, I had to quest ion, you know, where the works were, what they were about. In other words, the very construct ion of the gal lery with i ts neutral whi te rooms became quest ionable. So I became interested in working- in a sense bringing at tent ion to the abstractness of the gal lery as a room, and yet at the same t ime taking in to account less neutral s i tes, you know, si tes that would in a sense be neutral ized by the gal lery. So i t became a preoccupation with place, that sor t of th ing.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What was your re lat ionship with the Park Place group? Because they have popped up here and there.

ROBERT SMITHSON: I did a show at Park P lace once with Leo Daldorn and Sol LeWit t. John Gibson was running i t then. I knew him. And he was fr iendly with Virginia Dwan. I never real ly was that involved with Park Place.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Yes. I don’ t ident i fy you with that place general ly.

ROBERT SMITHSON: No. I never real ly had that kind of technological optimism that they have. I was always quest ioning that part icular th ing, I guess – I don’ t know -

PAUL CUMMINGS: I t was an idea which didn’ t work?

ROBERT SMITHSON: Yes. I preferred Sol LeWit t ’s mode of th inking. And Carl Andre’s. But al l those people were in some way connected with that. I t was more of a – I don’ t know – i t was kind of a – i t didn’ t have al l that sor t of optimism about technology. Also in 1966 I did an ar t ic le with Mel Bochner on The Planetarium which, once again, was sor t of an invest igat ion of a specif ic place; but not on a level of science, but in terms of discussing the actual construct ion of the bui lding; you know, once again, an almost anthropological s tudy of a planetarium from the point of view of an ar t is t . Stop i t for a minute. (machine turned off ) .

PAUL CUMMINGS: One thing you never f in ished discussing was the Dal las -For t Worth Airport.

ROBERT SMITHSON: Well, they eventual ly los t their contract. The pieces were never bui l t . Al though there was an in terest, I don’ t th ink that they fu l ly got out of me what they thought they would have got ten. But as far as my relat ionship there goes, i t was very worthwhi le for me because i t got me to think about large land areas and then, I th ink to a great extent the dialogue between the terminal and the f r inges of the terminal – once again, between the center and the edge of th ings – has been a sor t of going preoccupation, part of the dialect ic between the inner and the outer. That kind of range of thinking preoccupies me qui te a bi t.

END OF INTERVIEW

This t ranscript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be ci ted as fol lows: Oral his tory in terview with Robert Smithson, 1972 Ju ly 14-19, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Ins t i tu t ion.