Smithson found satisfaction in the probity of what was a newly mapped field; an expanded field of aesthetic practice allowing maximum freedom to artists in pursuing their aims, without site restrictions, or, indeed, the constraint of frames.
In the mid-1960s, Smithson found the law of entropy, within the field of thermodynamics, which greatly intrigued him and was to dominate his thinking for the rest of his brief life. This law, one of the two 19th-century foundations in thermodynamics, ordained that energy in any given system became extinct. There would be an inevitable, irreversible implosion in any particular system, so letting the system run into a condition of dissolution, collapse and total disorder. Current preoccupations of scientists with the universe, and the gradual cooling down of the sun, reveal other affinities with socio-economic patterns more evident since Smithson's death, of which he was aware, such as the decline of market products in consumer society and the displacement of such concepts as use value by that of exchange value in the global market place. Increasingly, the same entropic model today seems to appeal to contemporary artists in the vacuum after Modernism.

By 1982, Smithson had been posthumously claimed to be 'the great rediscoverer of the picturesque'. But this was spin spun, and not as he himself would have described things. He abhorred the picturesque. What was, therefore, satisfying to Smithson followers in this vein, was the way in which his 'Spiral Jetty' (1970) actually disappeared in due course, under the waters of the Great Salt Lake in Utah; and then, in an equally disorderly manner, suddenly reappeared in 2003. With this project, Smithson wanted to 'make the land work into a new Stonehenge, by catching the sun (from the air) in the centre of the spiral'. Later, in Holland, in 1971, Smithson developed 'Broken Circle/Spiral Hill', a project that, like a compass, engaged with solar movement more directly.

A further touch of irony was also applied by Smithson with his 'Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island' (1970). Here, 'Samples of flora once indigenous to Manhattan are to be barged around the island, like tourists.' So the past 'becomes a means for viewing the present and the unspoiled plants point up the polluted environment that New York City has become'.

There came the important Smithson exhibition after his death in the American Pavilion, at the Venice Biennale, 1982. But, the Whitney exhibition this year is a particularly timely reminder of what a trailblazer Smithson became in his short career, and the spaces used in this gallery show the artist at his best in the expanded field on offer. This autumn in New York City, there is also a special tour de force associated with the Whitney show. 'Floating Island', his, as yet, never realised work will, at last, have been realised in conjunction with the exhibition. From 17-25 September 2005, it will materialise, floating along the Hudson River. Through a collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art and Minetta Brook (an arts organisation in the city), it will be towed around, replete with its pristine, indigenous vegetation, just as Smithson actually conceived and drew it. A list of viewing points has been published in the press.

Smithson's interest in landscape displacement is epitomised by this brilliant concept, with a placement to enthral a still heavily polluted city. Ron Graziani's recent publication, Robert Smithson and the American Landscape (Cambridge University Press, 2004), is an essential and detailed analysis of Smithson's work and thought, and will reward further interest, as does the new Whitney Museum catalogue. The exhibition continues until 23 October 2005.

Michael Spens