Contemporary artist Conrad Bakker has completed an extraordinary five-year project that involved recreating every single book from the personal library of renowned land artist Robert Smithson. The ambitious undertaking, titled "Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library – Book Club," features hand-carved wooden replicas of all 1,120 volumes that once belonged to the pioneering artist who died tragically in a plane crash in 1973 at just 35 years old.
Robert Smithson, who worked alongside his fellow artist and wife Nancy Holt, established himself as one of the most influential land artists of his generation despite his brief career. An autodidact and polymath, Smithson pioneered innovative approaches to art that explored deep connections between landscape, place, and the formation of knowledge. His vast personal library reflected his incredibly diverse intellectual interests, containing books on subjects ranging from crystals and rock minerals to dinosaurs and insects, from ancient myths and children's rhymes to literary classics like James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" and Jorge Luis Borges' "Ficciones."
After Smithson's untimely death, Nancy Holt donated his entire collection to the Archives of American Art, where it remains housed today. This library serves as a unique window into the mind and research methods that shaped one of America's most important contemporary artists. Bakker discovered the collection through Ann Reynolds' comprehensive book "Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere," which provided a detailed catalog of each title and edition in the collection.
"I can't really remember my first encounter with Robert Smithson, but I've always been a fan of his artwork and, in particular, the way he oriented his sculptures to coexist inside the physical space of a gallery and outside in the landscape," Bakker explains. He became captivated by the wonderful diversity of Smithson's research subjects and the intensity of his self-education through books. "I imagined this collection of books as an extension of Robert Smithson's mind, his curiosity, and thinking," Bakker adds, noting that the library also functions as a fascinating time capsule of artistic research from the 1960s.
The recreation project represents one component of Bakker's ongoing "Untitled Projects," an artistic practice focused on recreating everyday objects such as chocolate bars and VHS tapes to explore various facets of economic systems, production, and consumption. Using images sourced from online booksellers, Bakker meticulously carved and painted wooden replicas of each individual edition, ensuring precise 1:1 scale reproductions of every volume in Smithson's original collection.
Since its completion in 2019, Bakker's recreated library has been presented in museums and galleries across the United States, from Utah to Arkansas to New York. The installation takes various forms, displayed in cardboard-like boxes and stacked on floors in room-sized installations. One notable presentation transformed the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, into a full-scale bookstore featuring the wooden replicas.
The "Book Club" component of the project allowed collectors to purchase second sculptures for a limited time, with Bakker creating approximately 350 additional works for this element. While the complete library remains intact in his studio, individual pieces have found homes with collectors around the world, including members in Barcelona, Spain, and various locations across the United States.
For Bakker, books as objects offer numerous avenues for artistic inquiry. He views them as historical records of culture and personal memories, commodities within economic systems, components of bookstores as public spaces, examples of outdated technology, and portable containers of information, instructions, and ideas. This broader interest in books has led to additional projects, including a used paperback sale and an archive of self-help titles from the 1970s.
The artist is currently developing several new projects that continue his exploration of contemporary systems and spaces. He is working on a full-scale copy shop reminiscent of 1980s-era Kinko's for The Weather Station in Lafayette, Indiana. Additionally, in early 2026, he will present a piece connecting capitalism and climate change at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The Smithson library installation is expected to travel to Stockholm in the coming months, with updates available on the project's Instagram account for those interested in following its journey.
