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Asphalt Rundown
Robert Smithson
Rome, Italy
1969
(c) Estate of Robert Smithson / licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Image courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

Asphalt Rundown was Smithson's first "flow" into a gravel and dirt quarry. He directed a truck to release a load of asphalt down a steep cliff in Rome, allowing the asphalt to ooze into cracks and follow gravity as far as its elasticity would allow. This expressionist mark reflects the idea of an outdoor action painting.

Here, asphalt becomes an artistic demonstration in the landscape, allowing it to be free of function and taking it to a new realm of creativity and new, perhaps more vertical, possibilities of expression and imagination.