Brian Dillon, “Objects in This Mirror,” Objects in This Mirror: Essays

Smithson made his trip to Passaic at a time when his interventions in the landscape were mostly of a relatively modest nature. He had already exhibited several “non-sites” drawn from New Jersey: wooden or metal containers housing rocks from the numerous quarries around Paterson, to the north of Passaic. Each container is a discrete displacement of the terrain: a reminder that all art and technology rely on such materia prima, and at the same time a suggestion that the earth itself is a sort of artwork (though not in any theological sense): a monument to obscure and inhuman forces.