To be more precise the work, which is 1,500 feet (460 m) long and 15 feet (4.6 m) wide, forms a counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. It was made of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah. One of the finest examples of Land Art was indeed Spiral Jetty, constructed in April 1970 according to the concept of Robert Smithson. The movement was even promoted in a film made by a German filmmaker Gerry Schum, featuring both American and European artists and their works released in rural sites the film was transmitted on an independent television called Sender Freies in 1969. These interventions were usually documented with the photo camera, and the photographs of the works were then displayed in an exhibition space. All of the elements were found in the natural environment and were composed in specific formations, aimed to remain exposed to atmospheric conditions and potential changes in the landscape. The leading idea behind Land Art was the use of natural materials such as soil, rocks, vegetation, and water. Naturally, all of those progressive politics reflected on visual arts, and eventually resulted in the appearance of conceptual art, the leading artistic phenomenon of the 1970s.Īt the same time appeared a new art movement based on environmentalism and an approach similar to the one of Conceptualism. The student demands were in sync with a broader social climate framed by the Civil Rights movement, and later feminist, LGBTQ and environmentalist movements. Namely, the discontent with social and political circumstances on a global scale resulted in the student protests in 1968 which nurtured a generation of young people willing to change their societies in a quest for a better world. Around 1967, Smithson became interested in sculpture in the expanding field, a term proposed by art critic Rosalind Krauss in 1979, which led him to create one of the pioneering and large scale interventions in the natural environment - the iconic Spiral Jetty in 1970.īefore we come to closer to analyzing this land art masterpiece, it is mandatory to examine Smithson’s practice in the context of the seventh decade of the past century.

He soon became preoccupied with Minimalism, and was affiliated with artists belonging to the Primary Structures movement, such as Nancy Holt (who became his wife a few years later), Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt. One of the leading proponents of Land Art, Robert Smithson initially flirted with Pop Art by creating hybrid collages made of various elements.

Robert smithson spiral jetty 1970