Spiral Jetty - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Spiral Jetty, considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....

, is an earthwork

Land art

Land art, Earthworks , or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked...

sculpture constructed in 1970.

Built entirely of mud, salt crystals, basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

rocks, earth, and water on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere, the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around , but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its...

near Rozel Point in Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, it forms a 1500 feet (457.2 m), 15 feet (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake which is only visible when the level of the Great Salt Lake falls below an elevation of 4197.8 feet (1,279.5 m).

At the time of its construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low because of a drought. Within a few years, the water level returned to normal and submerged the jetty

Jetty

A jetty is any of a variety of structures used in river, dock, and maritime works that are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for forming basins along the...

for the next three decades. Due to a drought, the jetty re-emerged in 2004 and was completely exposed for almost a year. The lake level rose again during the spring of 2005 due to a near record-setting snowpack in the mountains and partially submerged the Jetty again. Lake levels receded and, in the spring of 2010, the Jetty was again walkable and visible. As of late June 2011, runoff from record snowpack has all but completely submerged the Jetty.

Originally black basalt rock against ruddy water, it is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation and lower water levels.

Construction

Smithson reportedly chose the Rozel Point site based on the blood-red color of the waters and its connection with the primordial sea. The red hue of the water is due to the presence of salt-tolerant bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

and algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

that thrive in the extreme 27 percent salinity

Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

of the lake's north arm, which was isolated from fresh water sources by the building of a causeway

Causeway

In modern usage, a causeway is a road or railway elevated, usually across a broad body of water or wetland.- Etymology :When first used, the word appeared in a form such as “causey way” making clear its derivation from the earlier form “causey”. This word seems to have come from the same source by...

by the Southern Pacific Railroad

Southern Pacific Railroad

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

in 1959.

Smithson was reportedly attracted to the Rozel Point site because of the stark anti-pastoral beauty and industrial remnants from nearby Golden Spike National Historic Site

Golden Spike National Historic Site

Golden Spike National Historic Site is a U.S. National Historic Site located at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.It commemorates the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad where the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad met on May 10, 1869...

, as well as an old pier and a few unused oil rigs. While observing the construction of the piece from a helicopter, Smithson reportedly remarked "et in Utah

Utah

ego" as a counterpoint to the famous pastoral Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

painting et in Arcadia ego
Et in Arcadia ego
"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin . They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb...

by Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

.

The piece was financed in part by a $9,000 USD

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

grant from the Virginia Dwan Gallery of New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. A 20-year lease for the site was granted for $100 annually.

To move the rock into the lake, Smithson hired Bob Phillips of Parson's Construction of nearby Ogden, Utah

Ogden, Utah

Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...

, who used two dump trucks, a large tractor, and a front end loader to haul the 6,550 tons of rock and earth into the lake. It is reported that Smithson had a difficult time convincing a contractor to accept the unusual proposal.

He began work on the jetty in April 1970. Construction took six days.

Smithson died in a plane crash in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

three years after finishing the jetty.

The sculpture has been owned by the state of Utah

Utah

since June 2011. Previously, the area was leased by the Dia Art Foundation

Dia Art Foundation

Dia Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 as the Lone Star Foundation by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumberger oil exploration...

of New York

New York City

, who acquired the piece by a donation from Smithson's estate in 1999.. The Dia Art Foundation is currently seeking a new lease from the state.

Film

In 1970 during the construction process of the jetty, Robert Smithson wrote and directed the 32 minute color film entitled "Spiral Jetty". The film was shot by Smithson and Nancy Holt, and funded by Virgina Dawn and Douglas Christmas.

The film provided documentation of the construction process and also formed an ancillary artwork. Smithson combines his interest in geology, paleontology, astronomy, mythology and cinema, stating that he had an interest in documenting "the earth's history". In conjunction with filmed sequences of the jetty, Smithson incorporates footage of dinosaurs in a natural history museum and the ripped pages from a history text. During this scene Smithson critically refers to the institutions of history: "the earth's history seems at times like a story recorded in a book each page of which is torn into small pieces. Many of the pages and some of the pieces of each page are missing". Smithson's narrative supports an alternative view of historical discourse and the art object's placement or production outside of the museum institution. His writings also indicate that the helicopter film sequences over the jetty were a method of "recapitulating the scale of the jetty". By visually disorienting the viewer, Smithson is able to negate a time and place for the materiality of the artwork or create what he calls a "cosmic rupture". Through this state the viewer will be unable to categorize or classify the site, therefore left in a state free from the dialect of history.

Preservation

The current exposure of the jetty to the elements and to the ravages of its growing number of visitors has led to a controversy over the preservation of the sculpture. The discoloration of the rocks and the exposure of the lake bed having altered the colors of the original, a proposal has emerged to buttress the sculpture and restore the original colors by the addition of new basalt rocks in the spirit of the original. It is expected that without such additions, the sculpture will be submerged again once the drought is over.

The issue has been complicated by ambiguous statements by Smithson, who expressed an admiration for entropy

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

in that he intended his works to mimic earthly attributes in that they remain in a state of arrested disruption and not be kept from destruction.

In 2008 it was announced that there were plans for exploratory oil drilling approximately five miles from the jetty. The news was met with strong resistance from artists, and the state of Utah received more than 3,000 e-mails about the plan, most opposing the drilling.

External links

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