Robert Smithson’sSpiral JettyAdded to National Register of Historic Places
122Dec. 16, 2024
Robert Smithson’sSpiral Jetty, 1970, has been named to the National Register of Historic Places. Located at Rozel Point peninsula on the northeastern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the work is considered one of the world’s most iconic examples of Land art and comprises six thousand tons of locally sourced black basalt rocks and earth formed into a 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide coil that winds counterclockwise off the shore into the water.
Smithson’s widow, Land artist Nancy Holt, in 1999 donated it to theDia Art Foundation, which additionally shepherd’s Holt’s ownSun Tunnels, 1973–76, in Utah’s Great Basin Desert, as well as Walter de Maria’sThe Lightning Field, 1977, in western New Mexico, and Joseph Beuys’s7000 Eichen(7000 Oaks), 1982–, in New York. Dia stewardsSpiral Jettyin partnership with the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster University, the Holt/Smithson Foundation, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, with assistance from Utah’s Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands. Though Smithson imagined that the work would one day be absorbed back into the landscape, climate change and other factors, such as nearby industrial interventions, havesped entropy. In 2002, the work, which had been underwater since its construction, surfaced following a drought that caused the lake’s waters to recede.
“We are delighted that Spiral Jetty has received this important recognition, which will help us spread awareness of the iconic artwork and advocate for its long-term preservation,” said Dia director Jessica Morgan in a statement. “In the fifty-four years that Spiral Jetty has existed, it has been both submerged by the Great Salt Lake and stood far from the lake front, bearing witness to the changing landscape around it. Beloved in Utah and far beyond, this artwork has come to mean many things to many people, and we are proud to continue our work caring and advocating for Spiral Jetty to preserve it for generations to come.”