The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson’s Earthwork through Time and Place

Robert Smithson’s earthwork, Spiral Jetty (1970), an icon of the Land Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s, is located on the northern shores of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Smithson built a masterpiece from local materials, one that spirals counterclockwise into the lake and appears or is submerged with fluctuations in the lake’s locally red, saline water.

The Spiral Jetty Encyclo draws on Smithson’s writings for encyclopedic entries that bring to light the context of the earthwork and Smithson’s many points of reference in creating it. Visitors and armchair travelers, too, will discover how much significance Smithson placed on regional considerations, his immersion in natural history, his passion for travel, and his ability to use diverse mediums to create a cohesive and lasting work of art. Containing some 220 images, most of themin color, with some historical black and whites, The Spiral Jetty Encyclo lets readers explore the construction, connections, and significance of Smithson’s 1,500-footlong curl into Great Salt Lake, created, in Smithson’s words, of mud, salt crystals, rocks, water.