Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Robert Smithson
American; 20th-century
Beacon, NY: Dia Beacon
87%
Gravel Mirrors with Cracks and Dust. 1968. Mirrors, gravel, dust
There are twelve mirrors in two rows; one row is horizontal, the other vertical, and the two of them meet at a right angle up against a wall. Each mirror in the horizontal row has a pile of gravel on it, and in each pile of gravel there are bits of broken mirror. This artwork is great not (solely) because of what it "does": what it does is re-present "reality" as an image (in the mirrors) while also forcing you to recognize that that image is virtual, specious (by showing you the mirror shards in the rocks — things amongst things). The artwork is great because of the things it contains that aren't reducible to what it "does," but that don't quite step outside of that "doing," either. Why did there have to be mirrors underneath the gravel? What do six sets of mirrors-and-rocks accomplish that one set couldn't have? Why this particular proportion of rocks-to-mirror? Why is it on the floor so that we get our feet, rather than higher up so that we get our torsos or faces? These questions could be (have been) answered, but only in ways that do violence to the uncanny perfection. of the arrangement. (TFS, 2025)