Meandering Jetty

Date1971

Credit LinePurchased with funds donated by the Massey Charitable Trust, the Art History Department, the John Howett Fund, the Patrons of Paper, and through the generosity of Linda Hyman

Dimensions15 5/8 x 12 5/8 in. (39.7 x 32.1 cm)

Object number2008.038.001

Label TextOne of the innovators of Land Art, a movement that emerged during the 1970s, Smithson built his most famous earthwork, Spiral Jetty, in a remote area of the Great Salt Lake, Utah in 1970. It consists of a great track of mud, rock, and salt crystals that extends for 1,500 feet from the shore, coiling out into the waters of the lake. In the years since it was created, Spiral Jetty -- a multi-media project consisting of the earthwork, a text, and a film -- has come to be seen as one of the major artworks of the late twentieth century.

The drawing Meandering Jetty, completed the year after Spiral Jetty was built, reveals Smithson thinking in similar terms, but here the jetty traces a serpentine path. The land artists of the 1970s were keenly aware of ancient earthworks and myth. Meandering Jetty evokes the greatest of Native American mound sculptures, the Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio (600 BC - 100 AD), where the serpent's body traces a meandering line ending in a spiral coil at the end of its tail. The Serpent Mound functioned as a solar observatory: the serpent's head is aligned to the summer solstice sunset, and the coils may point to the winter solstice sunset and equinox sunrise.

Several other drawings completed at this time show Smithson's fascination with the meander. Some were made in conjunction with another earthwork that Smithson realized in 1971 at an abandoned sand quarry near Emmen in the Netherlands, Broken Circle and Spiral Hill. At this site, from the top of a spiraling earth mound, a visitor can look down onto a "broken circle" outlined by two arcs, one formed by a water channel slicing into the shore, the other by a jetty curving out into the lake. All of these projects -- composed of hills or islands, meanders or spirals, canals or jetties -- are ultimately concerned with the interplay of earth, water, and sun.
Exhibition HistoryModern and Contemporary Masters: Highlights from the Works on Paper Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 24 - May 17, 2009
Published ReferencesMichael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 152-53.

ProvenancePurchased by MCCM from James Cohan Gallery, New York, New York.

Status

Not on view

Collections