Editing Robert Smithson (section)

====Writings====
Smithson produced theoretical and critical writing in addition to visual art. In addition to essays his  writings included visual-text formats such as the 2D paper work ''A Heap of Language'', which sought to show how writing might become an artwork. In his essay ''Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan'' Smithson documents a series of temporary sculptures made with mirrors at particular locations around the [[Yucatan Peninsula]].<ref>{{harv | Smithson | 1969 }},</ref> Part travelogue, part critical rumination, the article highlights Smithson's concern with the [[wikt:Temporal|temporal]] as a cornerstone of his work.<ref name="Getty symposium">{{cite web |last1=Martin |first1=Timothy D. |title=Robert Smithson and the Anglo-American Picturesque |url=https://www.getty.edu/museum/symposia/pdf_stark/stark_tmartin.pdf |publisher=Getty (2011) |access-date=June 11, 2019}}</ref>

Other theoretical writings explore the relationship of a piece of art to its environment, from which he developed his concept of ''sites'' and ''non-sites''. A ''site'' was a work located in a specific outdoor location, while a ''non-site'' was a work which could be displayed in any suitable space, such as an [[art gallery]]. ''Spiral Jetty'' is an example of a sited work, while Smithson's non-site pieces frequently consist of photographs of a particular location, often exhibited alongside some material (such as stones or soil) removed from that location.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chrismcauliffe.com.au/sightnon-sight-robert-smithson-and-photography-1997/|title=Sight/non-sight: Robert Smithson and photography, 1997 {{!}} Chris McAuliffe|date=June 28, 2014 |language=en-US|access-date=March 16, 2019}}</ref>

As a writer, Smithson was interested in applying the [[Dialectic]]al method and [[generative art|mathematical impersonality]] to art that he outlined in essays and reviews for ''Arts Magazine'' and ''[[Artforum]]'' and for a period was better known as a critic than as an artist. Some of Smithson's later writings recovered 18th- and 19th-century conceptions of [[landscape architecture]] which influenced the pivotal earthwork explorations which characterized his later work. He eventually joined the Dwan Gallery, whose owner [[Virginia Dwan]] was an enthusiastic supporter of his work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/artist/oral-history/virginia-dwan|title=Virginia Dwan|date=September 16, 2016|website=Robert Rauschenberg Foundation|language=en|access-date=March 16, 2019}}</ref> In the late 1960s Smithson's work was published in [[0 to 9 Magazine|0 to 9 magazine]], an avant-garde publication which experimented with language and meaning-making.