The Jetty remained underwater from 1972 to 1996 and then was once again submerged in 1996 before reappearing in 2002, according to a history of the Spiral Jetty published in the Deseret News on the artwork’s 50th anniversary.ĭroughts have kept the Spiral Jetty above water and largely visible to visitors since its reappearance in 2002. The environment Smithson chose was so dynamic, in fact, that for long periods of time, the Jetty was completely submerged underwater. New analysis says Great Salt Lake can be saved, and here are the six recommendations to do it.Hikmet Sidney Loe, author of “ The Spiral Jetty Encyclo,” and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told me that Smithson was looking specifically for a “dynamic environment to build his monumental work.” Smithson was well aware that building the Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake would mean the artwork, like the environment around it, would be constantly changing.
Over half a century later, the water that Smithson used as a key material in his earthwork could be gone in as soon as five years, begging the question, what is the Spiral Jetty without the Great Salt Lake? A watery history Smithson was not building on the dry ground that visitors now see when they visit the iconic artwork rather, he was building on - and with - water. The result was large swirls of rocks that were mirrored side-by-side by swirls of water. When artist Robert Smithson created the 1,500 foot spiral sculpture in 1970, he - with the help of local crews - piled several thousand tons of basalt rocks and dirt sourced from the lake’s shore into the lake itself. On the northeast side of the Great Salt Lake, a little over a hundred miles from Salt Lake City, lies perhaps the most notable piece of land art ever made, and due to record-low water levels caused by a drought that threatens the very existence of the lake, the Spiral Jetty is more visible than ever.
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