Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty

Thirty years after his untimely death, Robert Smithson (1938-1973) remains one of the most influential artists of his generation. His complex ideas took root in many forms, including drawings, projects, proposals, sculpture, earthworks, films, and critical writings. Although made in a brief span from the mid-sixties to the early seventies, Smithson's provocative works redefined the language of sculpture. Several months after being included in the seminal exhibition "Primary Structures" at New York's Jewish Museum in 1966, he had his first significant solo exhibition at Dwan Gallery, where he would later curate the exhibition "Earthworks" (1968). His iconic earthwork Spiral Jetty was built at Rozel Point, in the Great Salt Lake in April 1970. Constituted of black basalt rocks and earth, Spiral Jetty forms a coil fifteen-hundred-feet long and fifteen-feet wide, that stretches out counter-clockwise into the lake's viscous red water. Smithson's film Spiral Jetty was completed later that year, and the third component in this ensemble, an essay also titled "The Spiral Jetty" was published in 1972. In 1999, the Estate of Robert Smithson donated the sculpture to Dia Art Foundation, New York.