The late American sculptor Robert Smithson’s most famous work, Spiral Pier (1970), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Located at Point Rozelle on the northeastern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, this monumental land art piece reflects the constant change of its surroundings and explores concepts of eternity and ephemerality.
Entropy was the driving force behind Smithson’s great undertaking, as the artist was interested in the unusual microbial and mineral-rich basins, which gave the brine its reddish-pink hue, and the salinity of the lake at the time. , and the lake’s salinity allows few species to survive. Survive. When Smithson surveyed the area, the arid environment was littered with abandoned industrial features, such as an old dock, some sheds and several rusting oil rigs. He paid $100 (renewed annually for 20 years) to lease 10 acres in the watershed and began work.
“Spiral Pier,” funded in part by a $9,000 grant from New York’s Virginia Dwan Gallery, consists of 6,650 tons of black basalt rock that was transported via dump trucks, tractors, front-end loaders and backhoes. From the website. It stretches 1,500 feet into the lake, and the coil itself is 15 feet (about 4.6 m) in diameter—requiring a huge amount of effort and multiple helpers over the course of a week. Smithson originally planned a J-shape, but after implementing it a few days later he chose to reconfigure the pier into a counterclockwise spiral appearance.
Smithson believes water levels will rise and fall, allowing salt deposits to crystallize and sparkle on the docks during recessions. Entropy struck again, and from 1972 to 2002 the work was completely submerged. The artist died in a plane crash just three years after completing Spiral Pier, never witnessing how climate change and drought pulled his earthworks back from the shallow water. .
Nancy Holt, the late artist and Smithson’s widow, donated “Spiral Pier” to the Dia Art Foundation, which oversees its preservation and documentation as the site becomes increasingly accessible Affected by environmental conditions.
It has since become a coveted remote tourist destination, and restrictions were put in place to slow its evolution through human intervention (such as no walking, taking rocks, building fire pits, or littering), which Utah officially adopted “Spiral Pier” as the official logo. National Works of Art 2017.
Now that the work is on the National Register of Historic Places, the foundation believes the new status will aid its long-term preservation, especially after plans for oil drilling emerged around the site several times in the 2000s.
“This artwork is beloved across Utah and beyond and means so much to so many people, and we are proud to continue our work caring for and advocating for ‘Spiral Pier’ to preserve it for future generations,” Dia Art foundation director Jessica Morgan said in a statement.
