Land art is a Western European art movement that expresses disillusionment with technology and complicated urban life. Humanity utilizes too much metal and plastic, moreover, people move away from ecological material, thereby creating a conflict situation between civilization with art and the environment. The concept of this direction lies in the awareness of industrialization and the mass nature of contemporary art. One of the famous representatives of this type of art is Robert Smithson, with his work Spiral Jetty. The author believed that works of land art should not be the subject of aesthetic pleasure and the subject of satisfying spiritual needs. The Spiral Jetty has several semantic layers that reflect certain problems, namely the relationship between man and nature, the influence of people on the environment, and the convergence of humans and nature.
Land art is a special kind of art, it chooses as a material a natural, artless environment, unstable, subject to regular climatic, natural, and ecological changes, and rejects urban culture. The actions of the forces of nature formulate a dominant meaning, namely dynamics. Since the main element in land art is the artist’s intervention in the natural environment, the projects reflect the diversity and uniqueness of nature, climate variability, environmental issues, and the essence of the impermanence of life. The work changes gradually, sometimes insignificantly, but it is these changes that interest land art artists.
In 1972, the installation completely went underwater for the first time, and for some period, it was at the bottom under an almost 5-meter water level. Over the next couple of decades, the Spiral Jetty was only occasionally shown above the lake. However, the stone installation rose higher above the water, and since 2002 it has been situated on the dried-up bottom of the Great Salt Lake (Lacey 2021). At the time of construction, the Spiral Jetty was a structure approximately 4.5 meters wide and about 450 meters long. Directed deep into the lake, it moved away from the shore by 170 meters (Lacey 2021). Upon completion of work on the installation, it towered 1.28 meters above the water surface.
The form and way of representation of the installation formulate its first semantic layer. Namely, the opportunity to come and personally touch, walk around and view the Spiral Jetty. In the same way, one has the opportunity to get closer to nature, to consider and feel its beauty and grandeur. It is worth noting that this meaning has not only individual works but also land art as a whole as a method of demonstrating the relationship between man and nature. It is due to the fact that the installations are located directly on the objects of nature and not in museums, galleries, etc. Thus, the connection between man and nature and the possibility of direct interaction between the installation and nature is emphasized. In addition, the very form of the building, namely the spiral, can be interpreted as a finite natural element, namely that resources and ecology are not infinite.
The Spiral Jetty inspired the art world to use its craft to draw people’s attention to the problem of human impact on nature. However, at the time of creation, the author did not plan to attach the sense to his installation as a symbol of climate variability. It all started when, due to a record-breaking drought in terms of intensity and duration, the area of the Great Salt Lake significantly decreased. As a result, the installation has become a visible measure of declining water levels, drawing attention to climate change (Lacey 2021). Thus, the Spiral Jetty reveals the second semantic layer of the installation, namely the influence of a person on the environment.
It is also worth noting that the installation has changed a lot since its inception. The deterioration of the appearance of the Spiral Jetty is formulated by the long-term impact on the installation of nature and tourists. Since then, the embankment has become overgrown with lake sediments and salts, and its boundaries have become less clear due to flooding and walking tourists. Thus, one can notice another evidence of the semantic aspect of the installation of human influence on nature. Namely, how anthropogenic activities can degrade the environment and spoil the appearance of nature.
The use of art as a way to draw attention to changes in the climate is based on certain notions. Thus, nature has always served as a source of creative inspiration for artists. The greatest landscape painters were shocked and fascinated by how the weather made the world beautiful around them and reflected these experiences in their works. In this way, artists can apply their talent to remember how human activity is worsening landscapes and changing the climate. Moreover, the advantage is that contemporary art is able to attract young people that tend to be interested in something other than art in its classical manifestations. It helps to engage people in discussions about climate change at a more mundane, everyday level, demonstrating climate records or extreme weather events as examples. Thus, the Spiral Jetty has become a symbol of attracting the attention of art to the problem of climate and a semantic layer of human influence on the environment.
Finally, the Spiral Jetty also has a semantic layer in terms of the convergence of man and nature. Primarily, it is connected with the main idea of land art, namely the inviolable interaction with nature. In other words, when creating an installation, artists do not harm nature in any way but only use objects to display an idea. Moreover, the work of Robert Smithson is located far outside the cities, and in order to get to it, it is necessary to overcome a considerable distance (Lacey 2021). A person needs to make an effort to be able to see the installation personally, and to feel the atmosphere of the place and the energy of the territory.
Thus, rapprochement with nature is demonstrated as a sacrifice of effort and time for contact. In this regard, one can trace similar principles with land art, namely the main ideas. The main feature of land art was the relationship between nature and man, the ability to harmoniously fit art objects into the landscape without violating its integrity and preserving natural beauty. Since then, the idea of a nature workshop captures, first of all, those who were born and raised in big cities and who escape from the metropolis. It gives people the necessary opportunity to break out from the stone jungle.
To conclude, the Spiral Jetty has several meanings in terms of the interaction between man and nature, anthropogenic influence, and convergence with the environment. Therefore, given that the water level in the lake has decreased, and the installation began to be located on a dry bottom, it formulated the human impact on climate change. Although the author did not plan that the land art installation would acquire such a meaning, however, due to this situation, the water level reduction became more noticeable. Furthermore, the Spiral Jetty was the impetus for the use of art as a method to draw attention to the negative impact on the environment. Finally, the interaction with nature is expressed through the opportunity to see personally, touch the installation and feel the atmosphere of the place.
Reference
Lacey, Joann. 2021. History of Art and Architecture. Vol. 2. Sugar Creek.