![]() Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty” (1970), mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water, 1,500 feet x 15 feet (Collection of Dia Art Foundation, photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni, © Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York) So he’s not saying, ‘look at these beautiful vistas,’ he’s saying, ‘the water looks like meat gristle.’” It’s about the fear, and the awe, and the terror that can be seen within a landscape. Smithson wasn’t interested in creating art that was picturesque, “but in his essay about ‘Spiral Jetty’,” says Hikmet Sidney Loe, author of The Spiral Jetty Encyclo, “it is about the sublime. “Spiral Jetty” became almost immediately iconic after Smithson presented the work to the art world through his film and then essay of the same name, and a series of aerial photographs by artist Gianfranco Gorgoni. Today, drought and water diversion have caused the lake’s shore to recede past the outermost edge of “Spiral Jetty,” and lower salinity in the north arm of the lake makes for water that’s still strangely pinkish but rarely the deep red Smithson found there in 1970. At the time, high salinity levels and colorful salt-loving microbes gave the water an otherworldly red hue. Made with 6650 tons of black basalt rock and earth, the jetty would stretch 1500 feet straight out into the lake, then curl around itself, an elegant fiddlehead of mud, salt crystals, rocks, and water. Just a few months later - three years before he died in a plane crash at age 35 - Smithson created the “Spiral Jetty” at Rozel Point on Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Robert Smithson, “Partially Buried Woodshed” (1970), woodshed and 20 truckloads of earth (© Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York) And that’s what Smithson was interested in, this inevitable rise into decline.” “But of course,” says Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, “the moment the central beam breaks, the whole of the structure is going to gradually, gradually fall apart. Afterward, Smithson donated the piece to the university, requesting that nothing be altered or removed from the work. In January 1970, Ohio’s Kent State University authorized Smithson, then an artist in residence, to dump 20 truckloads of earth around and atop a decaying shed until its center beam cracked. ![]() ![]() This year, in January, was also the 50th anniversary of another of the artist’s earthworks, “Partially Buried Woodshed.” Both works have changed dramatically since 1970 as they’ve been transformed by nature, culture, and time - which is what Smithson, who was captivated by entropy, wanted them to do. Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty turns 50 this month. Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty” (1970), mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water, 1,500 feet x 15 feet (Collection of Dia Art Foundation, photograph by Charles Uibel/Great Salt Lake Photography, © Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York) ![]()
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