DISPATCHES FROM SPIRAL JETTY

For the World Weather Network Holt/Smithson Foundation will send dispatches from Spiral Jetty, sharing unseen film footage from its construction, as well as images of the earthwork immersed under water, of its reappearance in 2002 covered with salt crystals, and of the situation today.

The first image dispatch will be of Spiral Jetty at dawn on June 21, 2022. In June 2023 the last dispatch from this station of the World Weather Network will be a commissioned poem responding to these ever-changing conditions.

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty

Built at the mouth of a terminal basin rich in minerals and nearly devoid of life, Robert Smithson’s ​Spiral Jetty is a testament to Smithson’s fascination with entropy. Constructed from 6,650 tons of rock and earth, the spiral continuously changes form as nature, industry, and time take their effect. 

In 2022, fifty-two years after it was created, Spiral Jetty is a barometer for the climate emergency. Smithson’s earthwork is located at Rozel Point, on the north arm of Great Salt Lake, the eighth largest terminal lake in the world. The current water level of the lake is at the lowest it has ever been since records began, following years of sustained drought and water diversion. In its half-century lifetime, Spiral Jetty’s visibility and relationship to the site has changed as the waters of the lake have dried.

For the World Weather Network Holt/Smithson Foundation will send dispatches from Spiral Jetty, sharing unseen film footage from its construction, as well as images of the earthwork immersed under water, of its reappearance in 2002 covered with salt crystals, and of the situation today. The first image dispatch will be of Spiral Jetty at dawn on June 21, 2022. In June 2023 the last dispatch from this station of the World Weather Network will be a commissioned poem responding to these ever-changing conditions.

HOLT/SMITHSON FOUNDATION

Nancy Holt (1938-2014) and Robert Smithson (1938-1973) transformed the world of art and ideas, recalibrating the limits of art. Holt/Smithson Foundation develops their distinctive creative legacies.

Holt/Smithson Foundation was willed into being by Nancy Holt in 2014. Our ambition is to become the hub of all things Holt and Smithson. Collaborating with artists, writers, thinkers, and institutions Holt/Smithson Foundation realizes exhibitions, publishes books, initiates artist commissions, programs educational events, encourages research, and develops collections globally from its headquarters in New Mexico.