Spiral Jetty
by Robert Smithson, 1970
Details
- Year
- 1970
- Medium
- Black basalt, earth, salt crystals
- Size
- 457 m (1,500 ft) long, 4.6 m (15 ft) wide
Robert Smithson built Spiral Jetty in April 1970 using 6,650 tons of black basalt, earth, and salt crystals to create a 457-meter (1,500-foot) counterclockwise coil extending into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It's the most famous work of the Land Art (or Earth Art) movement.
Smithson chose the site for its remote, post-industrial landscape and the lake's red-pink algae-tinted water. The jetty was submerged for most of the 1970s-90s as lake levels rose. Since 2002 it's been mostly visible, now coated in white salt crystals that were never part of the original plan. Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973 at age 35 while surveying a site for another earthwork.
About Spiral Jetty
On the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County, Utah. It's about 2.5 hours from Salt Lake City via dirt roads. There are no facilities, no signs, and no admission charge. Visibility depends on lake water levels: it's been mostly exposed since 2002.
The coil is 457 meters (1,500 feet) long and 4.6 meters (15 feet) wide. Smithson used 6,650 tons of black basalt and earth to build it in April 1970. It spirals counterclockwise into the lake. Salt crystals now coat its surface white.
It's the defining work of Land Art (or Earth Art), a 1960s-70s movement that rejected galleries and used the landscape itself as a medium. Artists like Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Walter De Maria created large-scale works in remote locations. The movement questioned the art market by making works that couldn't be sold or moved.
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