Island of Coal

Robert Smithson

1969 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Drawing directly onto the surface of a found photograph (still bearing its price tag), Smithson deposited a rough pile of black coal in the middle of a well manicured public park graced with picturesque vistas. In doing so, the artist undermined our complacent acceptance of antiseptic public spaces and, by extension, our consciousness: the ugly, but pertinent, processes and infinite span of geologic time.

Artist

Robert Smithson

Date

1969

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2001