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Wading the Spiral Jetty, 2012

Robert Smithson's Sprial Jetty was built in 1970 and became instantly one of the most famous and appreciated XX century art works in the world. Thought this work is featured in every surview of m..odern art, almost nobody has every seen it in reality. This signature land art piece is it not only far removed and inconveniantly located in the desert far outside Salt Lake City, Utah, but it also became invisible since it spent decades in the barely transparent salt water. It only reemerged recently for a limited time for a limited time. In its current state - it depends on water of the lake - it is again mostly unter water and is hard to see.

For this video /performance, I traveled to Utah and waded on the spiral physically, something that was not so easy to do since the visibility of the water is very, very poor. Even thought at the moment of my visit, the spiral was never more than 1 meter under water I could not see much and risked to fall, or lose track alltogether. The level of salt is very hight and qualtiy of the water is unpleasant, unhealthy and somehow abject.

This work is inspired mostly by two aspects: the film of Smithson in which he actually shows the construction of the spiral and in which we see him running on the spiral filmed from a helicopter; and the peculiar fact that the jetty was not visible at all for more than 30 years and resurfaced only 10 years ago (see NY times article below). Even during this time, this landmark land art piece is often not visible and fully under water.

see excerpts here July 7, 2012

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Wading the Spiral Jetty, 2012

video, 56 min , a two screen video

see excerpts here

sprial jetty

spiral jetty

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spiral jetty

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images:

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detail

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see the water quality - nice !!???

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this is what you find on the way there... (not to talk about the obiquious rattle snakes all over the place near the jetty... -- snakes love the spiral

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see excerpts here