Save the Spiral Jetty?
Photo: Salt flats near the Spiral Jetty, (c) T Craft, licensed to About.com, Inc.
As you know, I'm a bit of a greenie, and also rather keen on Earth Art. So when Marion, our Guide to Painting emailed me this week about a threat to Robert Smithson's Earth Art piece, 'Spiral Jetty' - proposed oil drilling nearby in the lake nearby - I was aghast. Sacrilege! Any sort of oil drilling is bad enough, but jeapordizing such an 'iconic' work of art?
I found myself wondering what the artist would have thought. Smithson died in a plane crash just a few years after the jetty was completed. The work itself is in something of a state of disrepair, due to the ravages of time and tourists, and there's been some debate as to whether Smithson would want the work restored. Having read some interviews and essays, I'm fairly convinced that he wouldn't be all that interested in protecting it from the oil drilling, either. In an interview with Alison Sky, he spoke at length about entropy, the natural tendency towards decay and destruction. He seems to have regarded some large scale, disastrous engineering mistakes, such as the attempt at re-routing the Colorado river, creating the Salton Sea, as 'curiously exciting.'
"...The ecologist says flatly that strip mines are just ugly and the miners says that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So you have this stalemate and would say that's part of the clashing aspect of the entropic tendency, in other words two irreconcilable situations hopelessly going over the same waterfall. It seems that one would have to recognize this entropic condition rather than try to reverse it."
It's a statement that I find deeply unsettling. So we just let everyone strip-mine, drill, clear-fell and drift-net until the planet is a desert? It's a strange kind of amoral aesthetic. How very postmodern.
You can see pictures and get some more info on the Spiral Jetty at Geography Guide Andrew Alden's blog.
Comments
Your point of view is very naive and ego- not earth centric. Sort of like the Cape Cod, and Martha’s Vineyard people who don’t want wind power generated off the coast because it would “spoil the view”. How do you suggest we get power? Do you drive a vehicle, wear anything not 100% natural, use any product, eat any food, produced further than 10 miles away from your home? What ingredients went into the production of your home and its furnishings? If you use toiletries, where and how are they produced? Is your home “green”? Are you off the grid? If you can’t answer any of these questions correctly, then you as much as any of us, are sucking energy out of that “oil well”. I had never heard of the Spiral Jetty or Alden until I read your article, but it seems that he had a much more realistic ethos of art and beauty than you do. I especially think you should rethink your own self righteous morality that allows you to throw the stone of amorality at an artist you previously admired because his ideas don’t line up squarely with your own. If you attribute ‘an amoral aesthetic” to Alden, you must accept the appellation of narrow minded for yourself.
I am so sorry. I managed to say Alden instead of Smithson throughout my entire comment.
Ouch! Don’t pull your punches there, Julie.
Yes, my home is very green. We are still on the grid, but I’m working hard to grow some of my own food, learning about permaculture and organic gardening, buying locally, and minimizing plastic use, and reducing consumption generally. I use no pesticides and just squash the Redbacks that infest our house. Yes, we do still own a petrol-driven car, but only until I can afford an alternative (a pity that alternatives were not pursued by industry and government many years ago).
When I do buy textiles I try to find Australian made or fair trade, natural and organic fibers, so am learning to knit because so much of our textiles are made in china - at least I can buy Aussie yarn. I buy secondhand instead of new as much as possible, wear things out, and don’t have a large wardrobe. I bought a bike and am learning to ride so that I won’t need the car for errands. I donate monthly to Greenpeace and also received two Greenpeace gift donations for Christmas.
How all that makes me egocentric, I don’t know. Maybe I should go back to cheap foreign-made fashion and get a new SUV.
I’m not saying that oil drilling is wrong because it spoils the view, but because it is a non-renewable resource, toxic and damaging to the environment. In the case of the Great Lakes, maybe it wouldn’t matter, I don’t know that area. But the fact is that Global Warming is a reality and we have to stop burning fossil fuels, and we need massive change and we need it now. If we keep consuming oil at the present rate, we are condemning our grandchildren to lives of misery and hardship.
(Please go ahead and put a windfarm in my back yard, I’ll welcome it. )
Smithson is amoral in the sense that he is not applying any moral judgment to the actions of people: it is all just a sort of meaningless happening, inevitable, all heading towards the same chaos. I’m not casting a stone at all: I think it’s a reasonable description of his position.