Detail, Surd Deposit

Robert Smithson was interested in the natural environment as an alternative site to the interior, decontextualized space of commercial galleries and museums. He produced this earthwork study as a document of one moment in the continual process of environmental flux. The drawing depicts a detail view of a wall-like cinder-block structure collapsing under the force of a concrete flow as it runs over a precipice. The appearance of the disintegrating edifice imbues the event with a catastrophic quality, conveying Smithson’s perception of entropy as a primeval or elementary component of the natural landscape.