Spiral Jetty

I love BIG art. Scale of a piece can be a statement all in itself. Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty at Great Salt Lake in Utah is just such an piece. I love how he took something that was mostly a utilitarian object and turned it into a statement. The grand scale of it makes it all that more interesting (i.e. to truly see the whole thing, you have to be flying above the jetty). One of the other considerations of the piece is the corrosive nature of the lake. The basalt rocks are now white with salt crystals. Not only that, but the drought that brought the jetty back above the water line has allowed visitors the "opportunity" to leave their own mark on the piece (graffiti, carrying off actual pieces of rock). This raises a whole host of questions about preservation and curation that are addressed in this NYT article. One actually serious problem is that of silt buildup which, over time, might actually threaten to cover the piece entirely. Observers of art are, understandably, unused to the realities of art that changes.

Perhaps it's an entirely new way of thinking



via NYT