Dont cheat: Which direction does the jetty spiral, clockwise, or anti clockwise?
Why? Did Smithson publish an explanation about his selection of direction?
Was there an environmental impact study made before the construction?
Has there been any subsequent studies on the environmental effects?
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The last three questions sprung to mind whilst I was watching the film in an exhibition last week. Although the description below states that the film is 32 mins long, the museum was only showing a short looped extract.
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For decades—years rich with rain and even floods—Spiral Jetty lay submerged like some prehistoric desert dragon, waiting on time and nature's cycles to resurface. When it reappeared, after five continuous years of drought, it was no longer a massive coil of black basalt but a glittering white spiral of encrusted salt—a transformation even its creator could not have predicted. ....
In addition to the lake's magical shape-shifting, Smithson was no doubt drawn to its astonishing and constantly changing colors. He selected a site at Rozel Point because of the bacteria, brine shrimp, and algae growing there, which turn the water close to shore the color of pale blood. Yet, within any given hour, the water transforms to bright turquoise or coppery brown, pea soup green or cobalt blue. Clearly, this offers the perfect setting for an exploration of time, space, and mutability. Of course, it is only possible to speculate about what Spiral Jetty “means”: its ambiguity is part of its transcendent effect. Smithson wisely chose a spiral for his massive earthwork, a symbol at once ancient and universal, occurring in many world cultures.
Interestingly, he reversed the usual direction of the spiral; its counterclockwise movement suggests infinity, rather than the more typical connotations of moving water or a human odyssey.
Indian rock art throughout the American southwest often depicts this reverse spiral as connected to a horizontal line, which suggests a beginning point—the lakeshore in this case. In other instances, as in a petroglyph found near Cedar City, Utah, the horizontal line might indicate the surface of the ground, below which the spiral extends to symbolize a flash flood originating below the crest.3 Smithson had a great interest in petroglyphs, and, even after he completed Spiral Jetty in 1970, he continued to visit Indian rock art sites in Utah. ....
The late John Coplans, who visited the site with Smithson, compared walking the jetty to time travel: “A spiral vectors outward and simultaneously shrinks inward—a shape that circuitously defines itself by entwining space without sealing it off. One enters the Spiral Jetty backward in time, bearing to the left, counterclockwise, and comes out forward in time, bearing right, clockwise.”
these are extracts - the full text the re-emergence from sculpture.org
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SPIRAL JETTY, 1970, by Robert Smithson (32 minutes) color
This film, made by the artist, Robert Smithson, with the assistance of
Virgina Dwan, Dwan Gallery & Douglas Christmas, Director, Ace Gallery, (the
aforementioned Dwan & Christmas also assisted Smithson financially with the
making of the Spiral Jetty), is a poetic and process minded film depicting a
"portrait" of his renouned earth work -- The Spiral Jetty, as it juts into
the shallows off the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake. A voice-over by Smithson
reveals the evolution of the Spiral Jetty.
link
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