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Robert Smithson is an emblematic figure of Land Art. His name is mentioned in most encyclopedia articles on this art form that blossomed in the 1960s[1]. The work Spiral Jetty (1970) is part of this movement, which calls into question museum production and the value of art as indicated by the market[2].
Built in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, this jetty made a notable appearance in public discourse during the winter of 2008 because of discussions involving the drilling of oil wells in its immediate surroundings. The argument for conservation has been raised on numerous occasions to prevent this development. However, the work having been planned on a philosophy of continuous change - or entropy - it is useful to question the relevance of this argument in the debate.
To achieve this goal, we will analyze the writings of the artist to highlight the complexity of his thought on entropy. Then we will oversee the most common interpretations surrounding this idea and the arguments invoked in the discourse of preservation before concluding.
Primary sources
The link between the writings of Robert Smithson and his art is so important that his texts can be considered part of the same approach. For discussion, we selected seven papers which will help to clarify his philosophy.
In Entropy and the New Monuments (1966), Smithson develops an argument from the observation of the sculpture created by artists such as Donald Judd and Robert Morris[3]. These new monuments enable mankind to forget the future while allowing one to avoid to look to the past. In this sense, they illustrate “inactive history”[4] as named by Flavin or entropy as seen by the physicist. In this text, Smithson traces a parallel with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. According to his interpretation, the energy is more easily lost than obtained and in the future, the universe will be transformed into an unified whole. The role of artists like Judd is therefore to eliminate time as a force of decomposition.
Here, Smithson gives a new role to time. He defines his concepts of entropy and time, and the role of the sculptor. Returning to this article in 1972, he says that it allowed him to focus on the importance of external sites located in the margin, such as craters and mines, on what he calls the landscape entropy [5].
The following year, he returned to the devastated industrial premises from his childhood in New Jersey. Following this visit, he wrote A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, N.J. (1967)[6]. To illustrate entropy, he suggested one should imagine a square of sand divided into two equal parts, in which half would be filled with black sand while the other half would be full of white sand. If a small children made circles in the square, he would mix together the sand grains of the two different colors. If the child was to start running conversely, he would not bring the sand in its initial state. Rather, he would be creating additional chaos. The irreversibility of entropy was explained.
In Conversation made at the turn of 1969, the artist was asked by Denis Wheeler to explain the principle of entropy[7]. Smithson alluded to the entropy of geology and waterways. He clarified his thoughts by comparing it to alluvia carried by rivers. That creates a tension between an initial state and a force that is making new elements, which causes chaos.
The interview with Gregory Müller in 1971, entitled The Earth, Subject to Cataclysm, is a Cruel Master, can clarify the thought of the artist on the destruction of works, its inherent entropy principle[8]. If the project focuses on Broken Circle - Spiral Hill, the similarities with Spiral Jetty are important. For example, both works are made of stone and a mixture of several materials. Broken Circle - Spiral Hill is a piece submitted to the constant action of water, which puts it in a state of flux. When the interviewer asked him to clarify his thinking in regard to these transformations, Smithson replied that his goal was to create a massive work that reacted with its environment. In the same breath, he stressed that ruins are more interesting than structure.
Thus, he takes sides on the natural changes which Spiral Jetty will face. Variations of water level and their impact on the work, whether they are caused by a major snowfall or a drought, have no importance in his mind. In fact, the mass of the art work allows it to handle changes int the weather, while inserting it in these and in other natural disturbances of the environment.
In Spiral Jetty (1972), Smithson went back to the genesis of this work[9]. His choice of the Great Salt Lake is explained. It emphasizes the presence of waste around the work, creating the illusion of a world of modern prehistory[10]. Old oil wells are present, as are pools of black tar. He recognizes that oil drilling has been going on for over forty years in the area. He takes great pleasure in seing these inconsistent structures together. For him, the site is a succession of systems made by human hands, then immersed in their successive abandonments.
He chose the site about one mile north of the oil site. The place made him think of an immobile cyclone and a sleeping earthquake, which created a sensation of motion without moving. The idea of the spiral arose from the concept of the still circle. He signed a lease for a period of 20 years to put this sculpture in place.
Alison Sky conducted the interview Entropy Made Visible in 1973 with Smithson[11]. In this chat conducted two months before his death, the artist talks about his definition of entropy. For him, it is a concept that comes at odds with the mechanistic world. It describes an irreversible condition that moves towards a gradual equilibrium. Accordingly, one should not consider contemporary art as independent of its environment.
He extended the concept of entropy to the entire Earth which he defined as a closed system and where the amount of resources available are limited. In this sense, recycling is seen as an attempt to stem entropy. He recalls his concept of geological and alluvial entropies, which allows systems to move from one state to another. For this reason, we should not talk about evolution. He contrasts environmentalists, who consider the exploitation of planet as something ugly, to minors, who see the planet with a different look that is equally beautiful. For Smithson, the two visions are part of the entropy because they seem irreconcilable, even if they participate in the same system.
Proposal for a Reclamation (1972) is a text describing a project in an abandoned mine in Ohio that allows Smithson to clarify the role of the artist compared to the environmentalist and the industrialist[12]. According to him, these two actors in society and the artist must develop in relation to one another rather than work in isolation.
Some interpretations of entropy
In the article A User’s Guide to Entropy, Rosalind Krauss and Yve-Alain Blois emphasize the idea of purity in the entropy, ie the movement that goes from distinct bodies to a uniform totality[13]. For these authors, entropy is both sublation, ie a new synthesis of figure and ground, and sublimation, ie the space that is purified by eliminating impulses associated with the body.
Accordingly, the model built by Smithson is antivisualist. Its challenge is temporal rather than spatial, which is why he put forward the geological metaphor in his writings. He finds entropy less as a condition related to boundaries located in an area than as a function related to the blind structure.
Therefore, the entropy gesture moves over the field of vision in the absence of the subject, to show automatism of repetition to infinity and the disappearance of the artist to a state without form.
According to this interpretation of the entropy by Krauss and Blois, Smithson is at the heart of a paradox. While his work wants to feel the force of entropy, it always resists it in some way. They cite the example of the project that the artist had to build a platform to see Spiral Jetty if he had known from the outset the Great Salt Lake would completely overwhelm it[14].
The contrasts in the written works of Smithson are also highlighted in the article Entropy and Dialectics: The Signatures of Robert Smithson by Gary Shapiro. For example, shortly before his death, the artist said that he did not want to abandon Spiral Jetty to the rising waters of the Great Salt Lake[13]. In this project, Smithson was split between the pursuit of entropy and the need for preservation.
As these two important texts show, there are contradictions in the approach of entropy by Smithson. At the end of his life, the artist gradually dropped the ideal to devote himself completely to the idea of entropy. In other words, he left the entropy concept to concentrate on the artist’s will. What the artist wanted to preserve was the sense of entropy, not entropy itself.
In addition, they highlight an important gap in the Smithson writings on the subject which concerns us. If the artist is not opposed at first to destruction of his work by the forces of nature, he does not talk about deterioration by human actions. This confusion will therefore be used in the public discourse that attempts to preserve the work of art.
Preserving Spiral Jetty
In an interview with CBC on February 13th, 2008, Robert Smithson’s widow defended the preservation work around Spiral Jetty by invoking the argument of human intervention[16]. Nancy Holt used extensively the inclusion of the work in the surrounding landscape to emphasize the importance of its protection. Moreover, she cited reasons of preservation of the landscape from the crystallization process and protection of the bird population to try to push oil away from the work. She even declared that the work was made to undergo the changes created by nature, and not those done by human hands.
Her speech was widely taken up by organizations opposing the mining actions. The National Trust For Historic Preservation announced its objection[17], just like the Friends of Great Salt Lake[18]. Art publications such as Arts Journal have also mobilized against the project[19]. Their efforts have borne fruit since the permit for oil exploration has been denied to the Pearl Montana Exploration company in August 2008[20].
It must be remembered that the concept of Robert Smithson’s entropy is a complex one. In his writings, he gave an important place to the effect of time. He relied on his understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to develop the idea that the world goes towards irreversible chaos. Natural forces push separate items in an indistinct mix. He based his arguments on the examples of geological and alluvial entropies.
In this sense, it is clear that Smithson did not object to the geological destruction of his work. On the contrary, he placed Spiral Jetty in a single moment in time. It is even possible that he desired that the work of art had a limited life since the initial lease agreement should have lasted only twenty years. In addition, the inclusion of the work in an industrial environment ravaged by periodic oil drillings was done knowingly. This landscape is an integral part of the work.
He also explicited that the environmentalist position can not be isolated from the group composed of the industrial and artistic positions. Smithson did not seem to give preponderance to one of these actors, but he seemed to wish for an harmonious development - ie an entropic one - of these forces.
For these reasons, it seems misleading to use the thought of Smithson to preserve Spiral Jetty from nearby oil drillings. According to his own logic, the work has entered a slow process of destruction of its uniqueness because it is part of a closed system. In this sense, industrial activity may not be removed from the equation, even if it means an environmental disruption.
Although the artist had already talked about efforts to preserve the work, we are in agreement with the interpretation of Shapiro when he says that, in time, Smithson seems to have fallen in the usual recuperation of the avant-garde artist, initially objecting the system before being eventually included in it[21]. Therefore, if preservation is necessary, the concept of entropy as expressed by Robert Smithson can not be used as an argument for justification.
- NOTES -
- See for example the article «Land art » in Encyclopedia Universalis.
- Gary Shapiro, « Entropy and Dialectics: The Signatures of Robert Smithson », Arts Magazine, vol. 62 (June 1988), p. 99.
- Robert Smithson and Jack Flam (ed.), Robert Smithson : The Collected Writings, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, p. 10-23.
- « inactive history », ibid., p. 10.
- Ibid., p. 293.
- Ibid., p. 68-74.
- Ibid., p. 196-233.
- Ibid., p. 253-261.
- Ibid., p. 143-153.
- « modern prehistory », ibid., p. 146.
- Ibid., p. 301-309.
- Ibid., p. 379-370.
- Yve-Alain Blois and Rosalind Krauss, « A User’s Guide to Entropy », October, vol. 78 (Fall 1996), p. 38-88.
- Ibid., p. 58.
- Shapiro, loc. cit., p. 101.
- Jian Ghomeshi (anim.) and Nancy Holt, Q, Ottawa, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio One, 13 February 2008, 14h00 to 15h30, 13 min 10 sec.
- Stephanie Smith, « Utah Considers Permit To Drill Near Smithson’s Spiral Jetty », Preservation Magazine, National Trust For Historic Preservation, update of 26 February 2008
- Friends of the Great Salt Lake, « SHORT TERM VICTORY! Decision has been made on Oil Drilling near The Spiral Jetty », update c.7 August 2008.
- Taylor Green, « The next step at GSL : Coalition-building, funding », Modern Art Notes, Arts Journal, update 25 September 2008.
- Friends of Great Salt Lake, loc. cit.
- Shapiro, loc. cit., p. 101.
- BIBLIOGRAPHIE -
- BEARDSLEY, John. « Traditional Aspects of New Land Art ». Art Journal, vol. 42, no. 3, Eathworks : Past and Present (Fall 1982), p. 226-232. [Online], <http://www.jstor.org/stable/776583>, (page visited on 5 December 2008).
- BLOIS, Yve-Alain et Rosalind Krauss. « A User’s Guide to Entropy ». October, vol. 78 (Fall 1996), p. 38-88. [Online], < http://www.jstor.org/stable/778906>, (page visited on 5 December 2008).
- BOUISSET, Maïten. « Land art ». Encyclopedia Universalis. Paris, Encyclopedia Universalis, 2008. [Online], < http://www.universalis-edu.com/article2.php?napp=80294&nref=T300341>, (page visited on 5 December 2008).
- COOKE, Lynn and Karen Kelly (ed.) Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. True Fictions, False Realities. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005. 208 p.
- FRIENDS OF GREAT SALT LAKE. « SHORT TERM VICTORY! Decision has been made on Oil Drilling near The Spiral Jetty ». Update c.7 August 2008. [Online], <http://www.fogsl.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Itemid=5>, (page visited 5 December 2008).
- GHOMESHI, Jian (anim.) et Nancy HOLT. Q. Ottawa, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio One, 13 February 2008, 14h00 to 15h30, 13 min 10 sec (approx. 14h30 to 14h43). [Online], < http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/qpodcast_20080213_4709.mp3>, (page visited 5 December 2008).
- GREEN, Taylor. « The next step at GSL : Coalition-building, funding ». Modern Art Notes, Arts Journal, update 25 September 2008. [Online], <http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2008/09/in_early_september_at_the.html>, (page visited 5 Decembre 2008).
- MUSÉES DE MARSEILLE. Robert Smithson. Une Rétrospective. Le Paysage entropique, 1960-1973. Catalogue of exhibition (Valence, IVAM-Centre Julio Gonzalez, 22 April-13 June 1993; Bruxelles, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 17 June-28 August 1994; Marseille, MAC-Galeries contemporaines des Musées de Marseille, 23 September-11 December 1994). Marseille, Musées de Marseille / Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994. 332 p.
- SHAPIRO, Gary. « Entropy and Dialectics: The Signatures of Robert Smithson ». Arts Magazine, vol. 62 (June 1988), p. 99-104.
- SMITH, Stephanie. « Utah Considers Permit To Drill Near Smithson’s Spiral Jetty ». Preservation Magazine, National Trust For Historic Preservation, update 26 February 2008. [Online], <http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2008/todays-news/utah-considers-permit-to.html>, (page visited 5 December 2008).
- SMITHSON, Robert and Jack FLAM (ed.) Robert Smithson : The Collected Writings. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996. 389 p.
Tags: oil drilling, preservation, Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty
