Robert SmithsonRobert Smithson is best known as a pioneer of the Earthworks movement. However, his involvement in the development of Earthworks is only one of his many contributions to postwar American art. His most popular concept that he innovated was that of “site”, or a place in the world where art is inseparable from its context. In addition to large-scale land interventions, Smithson's artistic practice also includes photography, painting, film and language. Robert Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey in 1938. He was an only child. His father, Irving Smithson, was an auto mechanic who later became a vice president of a mortgage company. Her father and mother, Susan, were both Protestant and Susan was also Catholic. When Smithson was eight years old, his parents took him on his first major trip, a tour of the United States. The trip made a great impression on him and he began to love traveling. Some of his other interests as a child were drawing, collecting objects, natural history, geology and dinosaurs according to Smithson, in an interview with Paul Cummings in 1972. Like many teenagers, Smithson found high school boring and was looking for a more stimulating and open environment. In the fall of 1954, as a junior in high school, Smithson enrolled in classes at the Art Students League of New York. He obtained a scholarship for the 1955-56 academic year. Smithson's education at the Art Students League focused on basic courses such as cartooning, life drawing, painting, and composition. Of his time at the Art Students League, Smithson said, "it gave me the opportunity to meet younger people and others who were somewhat sympathetic to my vision." 1(page 12). As Smithson grew older, he began to investigate the negative... in the center of the paper... Hans Haacke and Michael Heizer. Before Smithson became history in the art world, artists hoped to immortalize themselves by creating works that would outlast a human lifetime. Although most of his works were destined to be consumed by time and nature, making them have an infinite lifespan, Smithson wanted the exact opposite. His entry into wastelands and places where no socialization existed were attempts to show how fragile nature is in the industrial world and its powerful ability to defend itself from harmful things. Works Cited1. Smithson, Robert, Eugenie Tsai, Cornelia H. Butler, Thomas E. Crow, and Alexander Alberro. Robert Smithson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Web. November 15, 20112. Smithson, Robert. http://www.robertsmithson.com/index_.htm. Ed. Elyse Goldberg and Monika Sziladi. Np, 2004. Web. 15 November. 2011.