Robert Smithson
1969
Yucatan Mirror Displacement
[Yucatan Mirror Displacements (1-9)]

Chromogenic print, from chromogenic slides (126 format)
24 x 24 ins (61 x 61 cm)
 
Guggenheim Museum (NY)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee and with funds contributed by the International Director's Council and Executive Committee Members: Edythe Broad, Henry Buhl, Elaine Terner Cooper, Linda Fischbach, Ronnie Heyman, Dakis Joannou, Cindy Johnson, Barbara lane, Linda Macklowe, Brian McIver, Peter Norton Foundation, Willem Peppler, Denise Rich, Rachel Rudin, David Teiger, Ginny Williams, and Elliot K. Wolk, 1999. Accession: 99.5269, © Estate of Robert Smithson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
 
Curatorial description, Nancy Spector (Accessed: 15 April 2015)
 
While in Mexico, Smithson also created the Yucatan Mirror Displacements (1-9) by installing 12-inch-square mirrors on dispersed sites. The resulting series of nine color photographs was published in Artforum to accompany Smithson's essay “Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan” (1969). The mirrors reflected and refracted the surrounding environs, displacing the solidity of the landscape and shattering its forms. Part Earthwork and part image, the displacements contemplate temporality; while the mirror records the passage of time, its photograph suspends time.
 
For an analysis of another grouping from this series: Juliet Hacking (ed.), 2012, Photography: The Whole Story, (Prestel), pp. 410-411
 
LL/59292