very primal, almost a kind of Luciferian sort of art

April 18, 2020 8:14 AM

The New York Times called it “the most famous work of American art that almost nobody has ever seen in the flesh.” The artist who designed it said it was “the edge of the sun, a boiling curve, an explosion rising into a fiery prominence.” And the woman who financed it said it was “very primal, almost a kind of Luciferian sort of art. There’s something underworld about this particular spiral.” That piece of art is the “Spiral Jetty” — a swirling, 7,000-ton landmark off Rozel Point in northern Utah, built of salt crystal, mud and basalt rocks, that stretches more than 1,500 feet into the Great Salt Lake. And April 2020 marks its 50th anniversary.

The artist, Robert Smithson, constructed it twice. The first took six days of work, using two dump trucks, a large tractor, and a front end loader to haul the thousands of tons of rock and earth into the lake, but two days later, Smithson had it redone, to create today's spiral shape. The jetty disappeared under the rising lake waters soon after it was created, coming out of the deep due to drought in the western US in the early 2000's. It is now the Official Land Art of the State of Utah.

Smithson died in a plane crash three years after creating Spiral Jetty, while surveying sites for another land art piece, "Amarillo Ramp", in Texas, which was subsequently completed by his wife, and fellow artist, Nancy Holt (prior Metafilter thread).

More:
Explore Spiral Jetty - Aerial Maps - Google (while dry), or Bing (surrounded by water).
To check if it is currently visible you can see if the nearest lake water level reading is below 4195 feet.

Spiral Jetty on Wikipedia and Atlas Obscura

For those in Utah, the birthday party for Spiral Jetty has been pushed to October.

Previously on Metafilter:
Who Controls Spiral Jetty?
The World's Best Fifty Works of Art
To make people conscious of the cyclical time of the universe

posted by inflatablekiwi (18 comments total)

I’ve been able to visit it a few times, always during low water when it is fully visible. It is definitely worth the time to see if you have the chance.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:23 AM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

My wife and I walked it a few years ago. The remarkable thing was that there was a snake under the rock at the very end of the spiral. When we got to that point, it kind of woke up, as though saying "what are you doing here?" and slithered off into the dirt next to the rock. The surrounding area is worth the trip in itself. The salt flats are rimmed by foamy accumulations that look like clouds on the horizon. And the salt flats have all kinds of insects encased in them, like they are stuck in some surreal amber. As alien a landscape as I've ever seen on planet Earth. One of the coolest trips we ever took.
posted by MarioM at 8:45 AM on April 18, 2020 [11 favorites]

I saw this from a plane and thought I had gone mad. I've always wondered what the heck it was!
posted by TheCoug at 8:51 AM on April 18, 2020 [8 favorites]

Has Rust Cohle seen this?
posted by valkane at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2020 [5 favorites]

I've wanted to do a land art tour of the West ever since moving to California 13 years ago, but I've never been in a financial position to do so. (I've applied for the Lightning Field the last three years imagining that I'd find the money, but no dice so far.)
posted by mykescipark at 9:13 AM on April 18, 2020

I have only seen in while playing Breath of the Wild, but I did look for it from the plane when I visited Salt Lake City last year (alas, did not spot it.)
posted by purpleclover at 9:26 AM on April 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Oh, I've been there before!
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:30 AM on April 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

I was sort of meh at the aerial view and then clicked on some of the Google explore images and oh my God I want to go there. I'm fascinated by the landscapes of the American west so, uh, here's another to add to that list I guess. Thank you for posting this.
posted by kalimac at 10:39 AM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Unlike Star Axis, this is a piece of land art that anyone can visit. I like it!
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:46 AM on April 18, 2020

Even though he jumped in that, um, interesting, 2011 thread, MeFi's own gregorg was fairly modest about the fact that he's pretty much the leading online resource for Spiral Jetty related writing going on 20 years now.
posted by 99_ at 10:50 AM on April 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

Not sure if this is in the links somewhere, but the term "land art" is generally acknowledged to have been coined by Robert Smithson. In the preceding years, artists began calling such works "Earth art." Whatever you call it, it has been part of human artistic expression for a very, very long time.
posted by kozad at 11:29 AM on April 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

I’d missed land art on the tags - thanks for reminding me kozad! I had no idea Smithson had coined the term.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:11 PM on April 18, 2020

Awesome post thanks inflatablekiwi and to 99_ for gregorg's page. Smithson always seemed so so far ahead. Not at all sure I will ever see it with my eyes

- lake dust rock algae heat -

so this post is just fantastic.
posted by unearthed at 12:45 PM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

What makes it "Luciferian"? I guess I don't it. A spiral made of rocks.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 1:14 PM on April 18, 2020

I think the quote was, at least in part, referencing the fact that Spiral Jetty can sometimes appear in a sea of blood red water caused by the algae. Example photos here and here.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:25 PM on April 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Smithson also made a film about the construction of Spiral Jetty: http://www.ubu.com/film/smithson_spiral.html

If you're interested in Smithson and Holt's film work, every Friday during the coronavirus lockdown, the Holt/Smithson Foundation has been posting a high-quality version of one of their films online for one day. Spiral Jetty was last week and Sun Tunnels was this week: keep an eye on their Twitter to see what gets posted next: https://twitter.com/HoltSmithson
posted by Awkward Philip at 1:40 PM on April 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Went there in 2000; don't really remember it. Would certainly go again, though.


...there was a snake under the rock at the very end of the spiral. When we got to that point, it kind of woke up, as though saying "what are you doing here?" and slithered off into the dirt next to the rock.

You must not have been carrying a key item. That snake is supposed to give you a quest.
posted by neuron at 5:55 PM on April 18, 2020 [8 favorites]

This shows up as a sort of plot point in Rachel Kushner’s “The Flamethrowers“, as I recall. the narrator was deeply influenced by it. When I first read that part of the book, I thought it was the product of Kushner’s imagination, until I got more curious and found it in the web.
posted by hwestiii at 6:32 PM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]