Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E Chicago Ave
312.280.2660
This event has passed.
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Sam Durant, Partially Buried 1960s/70s Dystopia Revealed (Mick Jagger at Altamont) & Utopia Reflected (Wavy Gravy at Woodstock), 1998. Courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art
- When
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Apr 24, 2010 – Sep 5, 2010
Tuesdays (10am–8pm)
Wednesdays–Sundays (10am–5pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$12
- Links
“When a Modern Wing museumgoer accidentally stepped on Robert Smithson's floor-displayed Chalk-Mirror Displacement last month, jokes about the artist's pet themes of "entropy vs. displacement" practically wrote themselves; and all Land-Art nonbelievers had a good laugh. Still, even Smithson's harshest critics, such as the New Yorker's Peter Schjeldahl, acknowledge the power of his iconic Spiral Jetty — which darts into Utah's Great Salt Lake — and its making-of video, which plays as a piece of the MCA's Earthworks. Also included are Mary Brogger and Sam Durant, who playfully reference Smithson's seminal style in the exhibition: Brogger with a Farnsworth House-inspired structure filled with birdseed, and Durant with a dirt-and-mirrors installation that deftly deconstructs the bookends of the mythologized '60s, Woodstock and Altamont.”
Stephen Gossett, Flavorpill
MCA says: Robert Smithson (American, 1938-1973) is widely held as one of the most influential and significant artists of the twentieth century. His writings, drawings, sculpture, and, most famously, his earthworks have become touchstones for contemporary artists for their rigorous artistic and theoretical investigations and for the way in which they married concept and form. This exhibition brings together three works from the MCA Collection: Smithson's film Spiral Jetty (1970) that documents the production of the landmark work of the same name; Mary Brogger's Earthwork (2000); and Sam Durant's Partially Buried 1960s/70s Dystopia Revealed (Mick Jagger at Altamont) & Utopia Reflected (Wavy Gravy at Woodstock) (1998) — to demonstrate the sustained influence of Smithson's ideas and practice on a subsequent generation of artists.
