Untitled (Model)

Smithson once described himself as the "keeper of derangement," and even early sculptures such as this one bear witness to his life-long desire to confound our sense of space. The stepped forms were created by stacking and then carving away sections of plastic panels—each half of the work is a mirror image of the other. Smithson rotated the piece ninety degrees and hung it on the wall, thereby generating a strange optical experience: as the square modules decrease in regular increments, they create the illusion of a plunging perspective line, with the vanishing point in the lower right corner. Perspective, however, is an effect usually confined to the flat surface of a painting: sculptures, which already exist in space, have no need for it. Making perspective "three dimensional," as Smithson once said, is therefore a logical absurdity.