In 1970, Smithson constructed Spiral Jetty on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, a feat that involved moving 6,650 tons of earth and rock. Splicing aerial and on-the-ground footage of the earthwork’s making with maps, photographs, and imagery from New York’s American Museum of Natural History, this film captures Smithson’s fascination with how a landscape is inscribed with geological time. In recent years, new readings of the work have prompted a consideration of Spiral Jetty’s intervention into the land in relation to Indigenous histories in the Great Salt Lake region. While Smithson articulated his belief in the agency of the land, whether he directly addressed corresponding Native perspectives in his lifetime is not known. The artist died in a helicopter crash a few years later, at the age of thirty-five.
411: Holt and Smithson on Film, 2026
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Holt and Smithson on Film
Gallery 411Smithson and Nancy Holt, partners in life and art, were among a generation of American artists whose earthworks, made by intervening into the landscape, expanded art’s place beyond the gallery.
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