Spiral Jetty

Robert Smithson’s, “Spiral Jetty,” is an example of earthwork art. In Smithson’s 1972 essay, “The Spiral Jetty,” he explains his first impression of the area where he created one of his best earthwork projects. Throughout this essay, Smithson recounts how his work was built and explains some of his artistic intentions behind the piece. Earthwork art is a type of process art that is also related to minimalism due to its nature of the aggressive character and makeup of bold, “unitary” forms. His essay

created the “Spiral Jetty” with dump trucks, front-loaders, and a tractor to move the basalt stones and sand. The “Spiral Jetty” is located near the Great Salt Lake of Utah. Smithson created this piece so that the land and the water could meet. This artwork is supposed to change over time in response to the environment. Robert Smithson represents the idea of entropy in the  “Spiral Jetty.” Therefore, this landscape looks different than whenever it was first established. The “Spiral Jetty” is located

At times, the jetty is partially or completely submerged, which makes its constantly changing nature even more apparent. Land Artist Michael Heizer’s work plays with the entropic as well. His project, Double Negative [see Figure 2.5] consists of an enormous tract carved into the earth. With no framework or scaffolding to hold its shape, the piece is left open to the effects of erosion. In both Spiral Jetty and Double Negative, the entropic nature of the pieces

focuses was on the decay of natural life.3 In the late 1960s Smithson started to create his earthworks. He started by making them as ‘landmarkers’ like a map using mostly natural materials. He started making his most commonly known piece, the Spiral Jetty, in 1970 off of Utah’s Great Salt Lake.1 It was the start to his large scale earthwork. He was inspired by an Indian monument he saw in Ohio, the Great Serpent Mound. This was a turning point for him; he was able to finally achieve his goal of

Smithson’s work Broken Circle & Spiral Hill is two different works situated near each other. It is actually not in America but was commissioned for an exhibition in the Netherlands near Emmen. Spiral Hill is an earth mound that coils clockwise unto itself, like a sleeping snake. When it was completed it was just shaped earth but in current day it is covered in green

The stark white remains of the Sunset Pacific Motel upsets the urban environment surrounding the strip of Sunset Boulevard in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. French artist Vincent Lamouroux coats an abandoned motel, the billboard that rests above it, the wire fence encompassing it, and the palm trees surrounding it with a temporary layer of opaque lime wash. He names the piece Projection. The motel now stands like a ghost, gleaming in white with its community’s history eternalized beneath

pieces to use in my essay. I choose the Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson because I personally have been to this site. When I traveled back to see my family in Salt Lake Utah we visited the Jetty which helped me describe the artwork in the essay making the format flow better. The second piece I choose to write about was Dali Salvador’s Swans Reflecting Elephants. When going over the piece in class I felt as though this painting would connect with the rock Jetty by connecting both nature and the environment

regularity. Lightning Filed doesn’t age as Spiral Jetty does. But for Spiral Jetty—and Michael Hiezer’s Double Negative—there are open questions about the level of

Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty". "Migrant Mother" is a photograph of a single mom/ migrant worker with her two children during the great depression. "Spiral Jetty" is a colossal sculpture of a spiral in the Great Salt Lake. The Mediums used in these art pieces differ greatly. "Migrant Mother's" medium is simply a photograph. "Spiral Jetty", however, consists of over 12 million lbs of rock, salt, and earth. "Migrant Mother" has a much greater meaning to me than "Spiral Jetty", which is why I chose

“Daddy, daddy, throw me in again!” I called to my dad as I doggy-paddled towards him in the water. “Okay, but just one more time Cruz. Then daddy needs a rest.” He look at me with so much love in his eyes. He lifted me up under my armpits and picked me up high. “Ready?” He asked. “Yes! Yes!” I giggled, looking down at him. He dipped me down a little before lifting me all the way up and tossing me sideways into the waves. I laughed as my head reemerged from the water and kept laughing