About
Suzaan Boettger is an art historian and critic in New York and Professor Emerita at Bergen Community College. Her history of environmental and environmentalist art, "Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties" (University of California Press, 2003), was praised by the New York Times Book Review as the "definitive history" and by the Library Journal as "a remarkable combination of insight and intellectual enthusiasm that, rare in a scholarly work, is easily accessible and a pleasure to read." Her biographical monograph, "Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson" (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) has been acclaimed as “meticulously researched” and “deep and engaging. . . bringing coherence to our understanding of this remarkably complicated artist, his body of work, and his writings. A monumental achievement." She has contributed to all the major art magazines and to a dozen anthologies or exhibition catalogues and has lectured widely
Featured Work
Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson
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This first biography of Robert Smithson, famous as the creator of "Spiral Jetty,"deepens perception of him and his art by addressing the potent forces that as a successful sculptor he obscured. Applying historical investigation, occult decryption, and psychological acuity, art historian/critic Suzaan Boettger recognizes Smithson's visual and verbal creations as responses to the family history of loss that prompted his birth and shaped his strange intelligence. With copious illustrations of unknown paintings and drawings that eluded his destruction and discovered snapshots of Smithson, of his wife, sculptor Nancy Holt, and peers, "Inside the Spiral" offers insight into the enigmatic creator of this mystical pilgrimage site and his journey to its bizarre red water, calling up his history.
Other Works
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Nedko Solakov: 99 Fears
2008
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Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties
2002
Awards and Recognition
- Julius Silberger Award for interdisciplinary work in psychoanalysis, 2020, for the essay "Brother's Keeper: Robert Smithson's Anti-Elegiac Pictures"
- Milliard Meiss Publication Award from the College Art Association for "Inside the Spiral" 2021