Spiral dam

The design was originally created from black basalt blocks ^[10] , now its composition is naturally complemented with dirt and salt. The length of the spiral is 457.2 meters, width is 4.57 meters ^[11] , it moves 170 meters from the coast ^[2] . The spiral is twisted counterclockwise and directed from the shore into the lake. Due to the uneven precipitation in the region, the spiral is sometimes completely submerged, and sometimes the other way around is surrounded by land. Initially, the spiral looked black on a blood-red background; now, due to salt overgrowth, it looks black and white on pink.

Over time, in connection with walking on the mound of tourists, due to periodic flooding of the structure, the dam gradually collapses. At the same time, the author of the structure always expressed admiration for entropy , that is, he himself was not against the gradual destruction of everything, including what he had created ^[12] .

In 2008, it became aware of plans to drill nearby (approximately 8 kilometers ^[13] ) from the structure ^[14] . This news caused strong resentment among artists, over 3000 letters came to the state administration e-mail on this occasion, mostly with a request to ban these works ^{[13] [15]} .

In the year of the Dam in the Great Salt Lake, there was an abnormally low water level ^[6] , and at that time the height of the spiral above the water level was 1.28 meters. In 1972, two years after construction, the water level returned to normal and was often even higher than it, so for three decades the Spiral Dam was seen from the water infrequently and not for long. Since 2002, the Spiral is easily accessible to tourists most of the time ^[16] , according to the latest information, in September 2014 the dam was noticeably higher than the water level, since the lake level was 1,277.95 meters above sea level — at least 167 years ^{[8] [ 17]} .

Part of the money for the construction of the sculpture in the amount of $ 9,000 was given by the New York gallery Virginia Dwan ^[18] . It also annually for 20 years ^[10] paid $ 100 (later - 160 and 250 ^[10] ) for renting 10 acres of land ^[15] , on which the sculpture is located ^[7] . Since 1999, the composition has been leased by the ^[11] . Since June 2011, the Spiral Dam has passed into the possession of the state of Utah ^[15] .

Smithson chose this place for his spiral due to the red tinge of water here, which is caused by the presence of bacteria and algae, which feel perfectly at a huge salinity of 27%, common in this part of the lake ^[19] . With this contrast of colors, the artist wanted to give a reference to the emergence of life ^[7] . The choice of this place was also influenced by clearly anti- pastoral beauty: the industrial remains of the 24 (24 kilometers), the old pier and several unused oil rigs nearby ^[18] . Looking around a building under construction from a helicopter, Smithson said: “I am in Utah” ^[7] , paraphrasing the winged Latin dictum, which served as the motive for many works of painting and literature of the XVII — XIX centuries, Et in Arcadia ego ^[21] .

To install stones in Smithson Lake, he used two dump trucks , a large tractor and a mining loader ^[7] : in total, 6650 ^[20] tons of stones and earth were moved to the Great Salt Lake. The artist had some disagreements with the contractor about creating such an unusual construction. The Spiral Dam was the first work of the author, for which it was necessary to settle the issues of land rights and the presence of heavy machinery for moving the earth ^[22] . It took six days to create the composition ^[18] .

Movies

During the construction of his Dam, Smithson wrote the script and made a 32-minute color documentary about the creation of this work. The same New York gallery Virginia Dwan helped him with this money. The tape operator was Robert's wife, , who, like her husband, was a sculptor of unusual art installations. In this picture, Smithson showed the viewer his interest not only in creation, but also in geology, paleontology, astronomy, and mythology. The peculiarities of the film are that it is very difficult to learn anything from him about Smithson himself: who he is, why he did it, and why in this particular place. The words of Smithson - the narrator behind the scenes - are ambiguous and difficult to associate with what is happening on the screen, and often they are not audible at all, as they drown in other sounds (while generally the tape is technically very successful) ^[24] .

In 2007, director made a biopic of Casting a Glance ^[25] , in which he spoke about Robert Smithson in general and about his work Spiral Dam in particular. Observer Alexey Tyutkin on cineticle.com website writes in the review for this tape: “The imprinted views of the Spiral dam by Smithson are capable of bringing down a mountain of meaning that can be very heavy”; “Before time was afraid of the pyramids , now it is afraid of the Spiral dam - it is immersed in water, appears on the surface, glitters with diamonds of precipitated salt, peacefully rests in the snow. Even if the tide lends its outline to the bottom, there will be a Dam trail, a palimpsest of stone curl on red salty water ”; "The dam indicates the existence of time"; “The spiral dam is a runway to Nothing, and a person who has passed it to the end sees the same thing as at the beginning: water, foam flakes, salt, basalt lumps. This external path does not lead to anything - to go along the Dam or to look, “casting a glance” is necessary in the inner space, dimension of thinking ” “It was necessary to build a Dam so that, by asking a question about time, it would become a question mark and at the same time a notch for which the eye would catch”; “In the Spiral Dam, time is curtailed, which is more human, and it makes it very clear that this is a time before which everything becomes small and insignificant”; “Neither the wind, nor the tectonic movements of the plates, nor the persistent ebbs and tides, can straighten the spiral dam. It may seem like a curl of a violin, a folded whip, a female curl from Hitchcock 's Vertigo , a taut leaf of a fern - this is the spring that, straightening, directs the eye to the field of thinking, and it always remains with this riddle-unkind and then calms down like fire candles in endless windlessness. And there remains only the Dam and the man, the Dam and the spectator, the Dam and the glance ” ^[26] .

• Spiral dam (Eng.) On the official website of Robert Smithson
  • The film "Spiral Dam" (English) on the official website of Robert Smithson
• Susan Stein. One on One: Jill Dawsey on Vik Muniz's "Spiral Jetty after Robert Smithson" (Eng.) On the site sfmoma.org , January 24, 2011
• How to get to the Spiral Dam (eng.) On the website diaart.org
• Smithson, Spiral Dam (English) on khanacademy.org . Video 0:03:44
• Sunrise over the Spiral Dam on getty.edu . Video 0:00:15
• Exhibition poster for Robert Smithson: Great Salt Lake, Utah, Dwan Gallery, New York City, 1970 at aaa. si .edu
•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spiral Dam