Spiral Jetty: The Art That Fights the Lake
Robert Smithson built Spiral Jetty to be temporary. The 1,500-foot coil of black basalt and earth, extending into Utah's Great Salt Lake, was intended to erode, submerge, transform. But the lake dropped, exposing the jetty for decades, coating it in white salt crystals, making it more famous than Smithson could have imagined. Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973, never seeing his work's extended life. The jetty has since been submerged and exposed multiple times, responding to the lake's fluctuations. It's earthwork art - sculpture at landscape scale, process as important as form, meaning that shifts with water levels. The pilgrimage to see it is part of the piece.
The Creation
In 1970, Robert Smithson leased land from the state of Utah and brought in earthmovers. Over six days in April, crews deposited 6,650 tons of black basalt rock, forming a counterclockwise spiral extending 1,500 feet into the lake. Smithson chose the site for its industrial abandonment - an old oil drilling operation had left rusty equipment on the shore - and for the lake's reddish microbial tints. The cost was roughly $9,000. The work was part of the 'earthworks' movement, artists escaping galleries to engage landscape directly. Spiral Jetty was immediately submerged by rising lake levels. It would stay underwater until 2002.
The Emergence
Drought dropped the Great Salt Lake throughout the 2000s, exposing Spiral Jetty for the first time in three decades. The black basalt had whitened with salt deposits; the red water had receded. Visitors who'd only seen photographs could finally walk the spiral. The artwork had changed - not just the salt coating, but the lake's response to climate and water usage. Each visit differs: water levels, salt colors, microbial tints, weather. The jetty is never the same twice. Smithson designed for entropy; entropy complied in ways he couldn't have predicted.
The Meaning
Spiral Jetty resists fixed interpretation. Smithson spoke of crystalline structures, entropy, the prehistoric. The spiral echoes salt crystals, ancient seashells, galaxies. It confronts viewers with geological time, industrial intervention, the lake's indifference to human intention. Critics have written volumes. Visitors often find the experience more primal than intellectual - the remoteness, the salt smell, the sheer weirdness of finding art at the end of a dirt road on a shrinking lake. The meaning is what you bring. The experience is the pilgrimage, the discovery, the moment of standing on black-white rock while the pink lake stretches away.
The Future
The Great Salt Lake continues dropping as Utah's population grows and diverts water. Spiral Jetty, created for submersion, may never submerge again. The Dia Art Foundation, which owns the work, faces questions about preservation: do you maintain earthwork art, or let entropy proceed as the artist intended? If the lake dries entirely, the jetty becomes inland sculpture, its context destroyed. Climate change makes the questions urgent. The artwork that was supposed to disappear may instead watch its lake disappear. The process Smithson embraced continues, unpredictably, beyond any artist's control.
Visiting Spiral Jetty
Spiral Jetty is located on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, roughly 100 miles northwest of Salt Lake City. The site is managed by Dia Art Foundation and Golden Spike National Historical Park; access is free but remote. The last 15 miles are unpaved; road conditions vary seasonally. Check water levels before visiting - submerged jetty means nothing to see. The Golden Spike visitor center, commemorating the transcontinental railroad, is nearby. There are no services at the site - bring water, sun protection, and prepared expectations. The experience requires effort: navigating rough roads, enduring isolation, earning the encounter with art that exists only because someone chose to build it here.
From the Air
Located at 41.44°N, 112.67°W on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, Utah. From altitude, Spiral Jetty is visible as a distinctive coil extending into the lake - white against pink water when exposed, invisible when submerged. The site is strikingly isolated: dirt roads, no development, the salt flat expanse surrounding. The lake itself is notable - pink and red from halophilic bacteria and brine shrimp, levels fluctuating visibly over years. The Golden Spike rail junction is nearby. The jetty's spiral form is unmistakable from altitude, clearly intentional against the natural shoreline. The remoteness that makes visiting difficult makes the aerial view more precious - evidence of human intention in an indifferent landscape.