#robert smithson

Artist :Robert Smithson (1938-1973)

INK METAPHOR II.

@ombre-ame upload

Mar 24,2026

In 2012 the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen with „The Invention of Landscape“ mounted the first solo exhibition of Robert Smithson in Germany since 1989. A central role in the exhibition played Smithson’s „Broken Circle/Spiral Hill“, realized in Emmen, the Netherlands, in 1971, to this day is a lesser-known work by the Land Art icon. It was conceived for the exhibition „Sonsbeek buiten de perken“ that sought to give visitors an understanding of Land Art, Minimal Art and Concept Art. After an extensive search all over the Netherlands Smithson chose an area in the vicinity of the City of Emmen which, in contrast to most sites he had visited, was still raw and far from idyllic. In fact it was a sandpit still in use. 

For the site Smithson then made several drawings for a potential sculptural intervention. Ultimately, the idea for two-piece „Broken Circle/Spiral Hill“ proved most feasible: consisting of a broken circle, divided into jetty and canal, a massive boulder and an elevated spiral hill, Smithson’s work is a complex reflection of site and country. The broken circle e.g. came about as a result of flooding, a hint to the  devastating floods of 1953, while the boulder was a reference to the geological situation of the sandpit at the outskirts of an ice-age end moraine.

Smithson’s many-faceted ideas and the genesis of „Broken Circle/Spiral Hill“ not only were documented in the exhibition but also in the accompanying catalogue, published by Snoeck also in 2012. Beginning with Roel Arkestijn’s essay discussing the inception of the project and its consecutive realization, the catalogue delves into Smithson’s „Land Reclamation“ projects and the entropic landscape: Kai Vöckler situates the Emmen project in Smithson’s oeuvre and shows how his projects gradually became more complex and site specific. Marc Glöde in turn addresses the cinematic dimension of Smithson’s work and elaborates on the aspects of time, space and movement inscribed in his filmic elaborations on his Land Art projects.