Breaking! Spiral Jetty Threatened by Oil Drilling Plans
This just in via MAN: A new drilling contract in Utah threatens Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, an emergency email from the artist’s widow, Nancy Holt, informs journalists. A number of pipes and pumps will be laid beneath the water and shore, as well as roads built for oil tank trucks, and cranes for other development needs, all of which promise to severely alter the surrounding environment including Spiral Jetty.
To voice your concerns emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov. Refer to Application # 8853. The deadline for protest is 7 PM ET today.
Nancy Holt’s letter in full here:
Yesterday I received an urgent email from Lynn DeFreitas, Director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, telling me of plans for drilling oil in the Salt Lake near Spiral Jetty. See Attachments. The deadline for protest is [today] Wednesday, at 5PM. Of course, DIA has been informed and are meeting about it today.
I have been told by Lynn that the oil wells will not be above the water, but that means some kind of industrial complex of pipes and pumps beneath the water and on the shore. The operation would require roads for oil tank trucks, cranes, pumps etc. which produce noise and will severely alter the wild, natural place.
If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov. Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference, they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.
They try to slip these drilling contracts under the radar, that’s why we found out so late, not through notification, but from a watchdog lawyer at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the group that alerted me to the land leasing for oil and gas near Sun Tunnels last May.
Thank you for your consideration of this serious environmental matter.
Oil wells? Industrial machinery? Sounds right up Smithson’s alley. Would he really be making an argument for preserving pristine nature?
His widow seems to think so. That’s good enough for me.The real problem here is preserving the art work. I don’t think there is any contradiction in wanting to preserve an artwork just because it happened to require machinery to build it. We preserve historical buildings all the time because we believe their cultural value outweighs whatever monetary benefit a real estate developer might gain. Nobody makes the argument that those structures don’t deserve the protection because in their time, they too saw economic benefits, or disrupted the landscape in some way.
For those who would like an aerial view:
http://tinyurl.com/32s3hm
Smithson’s work dealt with entropy, beginnings and endings. This would be a timely and fitting end to his most well known work. |it was never intended to last forever.
You guys really think Smithson would rather his work be destroyed by oil drilling than by nature? I don’t buy that for a minute.
I’ve spoken with a surprising number of folks today who seem to feel that the drilling would be an appropriate extension of the natural processes already affecting the piece.
I can see the logic in that, but that doesn’t change the fact that there should be some kind of delay in approving the application to drill so that the impact of the project can be examined in advance.
I have created a facebook group called ‘Save Spiral Jetty’ to try to get this message out to a larger group. It points back at this page. If you are concerned, please could you join, and invite your facebook friends to do similar. Thanks
I think that his wife would know his mind and wishes somewhat better than any conjecture that we can put forward!
Thanks Paddy for bringing attention to this critical issue.
I’ve put up a couple of diagrams which illustrate the positioning of the drilling and the close proximity to not only the Spiral Jetty, but to Gunnison Island, a critical nesting site for thousands of birds:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluheron/2231946490/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluheron/2230921943/
I looked at the drilling application, and the staging site is Little Valley Harbor, not within view of the Spiral Jetty. The feared road bringing in supplies wouldn’t cross paths with tourists visiting the Jetty until somewhere near the Golden Spike Monument, where the paved road begins.
http://imoralist.blogspot.com/2008/01/sign-from-dia.html
If you have never been to the spiral jetty, and have a chance to do so anytime soon, you must go. It is a haunting, thrilling, magical place and it takes some initiative just to make it there in one piece over hours of bone-bouncing, car-wrecking roads. It tests one’s patience but the reward is more than adequate.
Drilling oil there is logical considering the history of the place, but it would be a shame. This art is truly a treasure, that seems ancient and futuristically modern at once.
I’m just going from the info here - Holt is just making a call to preserve the nature around the art, not the art. There is no mention at all made of the art being threatened.
The sculpture itself, to quote Nancy Holt’s own email, ’severely alter(ed) the wild, natural place.’ Let’s get down to brass tacks; are people supposed to be more upset about the destruction of the sculpture or the development of the area for oil production?
one more thing. we need to quit pillaging the planet for our own immediate needs. reduce our dependency on natural resources and respect the few last remote and pristine places that are left and leave them alone.
I have a hard time understanding the difference in altering the environment on any similar scale. It is ok for an inert art project, but not ok for something that may suck resources from the earth.
I don’t know the artist, not even familiar, but the defense here is weak.
And, I am a person with an ecological bent.
I visited the jetty two years ago on a late august evening, just after sunset. It was very difficult to get to, even with a GPS. Not a soul was around for miles other than some cattle that I passed many miles back. I remember passing huge sunflowers on the side of the dirt trail that led through the cattle pastures to the site. When I finally got to the jetty the twilight and moonlight were just enough to illuminate the jetty and allow me to see it as it broke up the reflection of the sky in the water. The air was warm and there was only a slight breeze, but the water was warmer still. The only man evidence of civilization were one or two jets miles and miles to the south landing at SLC. I walked the spiral to get to the center. It took half an hour since the water level was almost at the rock tops. My headlamp illuminated my sandals as they got saltier and saltier. I stood out there for a good long while enjoying the shear beauty of the night. The silence under the stars was beautiful. I really hope this site is able to remain undisturbed.
Here’s the picture I took:
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/andytempjackson2/SpiralJetty.jpg
In my view, the most important issue is not so much the road, the development of the area, or even the threat to the Jetty.
To me, the thing which stands out the most is the drilling for OIL which is taking place within a few short miles of a protected wildlife area, an island containing thousands of breeding birds of all types. An industrial accident, an oil well fire or even an earthquake (Utah is known to be seismically active) could release enough pollution to kill thousands of birds, particularly if it happened during hatching season. The noise and activity could potentially drive birds from the sanctuary, as has happened with other refuges within the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. I’m not even particularly opposed to domestic drilling for oil, although my personal preference would be to focus more on development of sustainable resources.
However, putting an oil development project so close to such a sensitive ecological area smacks to me of someone not really doing their homework. I mean, if ordinary boats are restricted from coming near the island so they won’t disturb the birds, then why won’t a major drilling project do the same thing, or worse?
Spiral Jetty: Good Morning Entropy…
Spiral Jetty (1970) and oil jetty (ca.1920-1980), IKONOS satellite image (11/11/02) via BoingBoing, 1/30/08 : Paddy from the blog Art Fag City says: I just received an email from a colleague of mine informing me that new oil development plans…
Smithson was not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, nor did he believe there was any such thing as “Nature” - as something separate and distinct from human endeavor. In fact, the notion that progress and technology (even in its most egregious uses) have somehow removed us from “Nature” or set us against “Nature” is patently absurd, a fiction sustained by arrogance religion, and feeble reasoning.
Ironically, 50 years ago, Smithson was not only inspired but strengthened in his resolve by the wreckage and debris that once greeted the visitor to the site of Spiral Jetty, the wreckage and debris of a failed oil drilling operation of the mid-20th century. In his eyes, these things, this industrial junk (now removed - sanitized in the last few years by the DIA Fdn in the interest of stopping time for profit)was of the highest aesthetic value, a motivating factor in his placement of the work.
The cult of preciousness, the very thing Smithson held in contempt throughout his career, has finally caught up with him; the meaning of the work has finally been separated from the work itself; entropy has finally been defeated.
Nancy Holt is wrong. And if Robert Smithson himself were to rise from the dead and rail against the oil industry I would call him a liar and a fake.
I have been to Spiral Jetty, and as excellent as that experience was, it wasn’t the jetty that set me free, it was the intention, faint but still sensible, like the sound of the sea in a shell.
Bitterman is right: Smithson, were he to rise from the grave, would likely embrace the news of drilling.
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2008/01/spiral-jetty-go.html
:)
JG
it is so sad that something so whimsical and fun has to be destroyed because of our dependence on a fuel source.
Omigosh, I love the spiral jetty. I’ve gone there 3 Octobers in a row and have been deeply touched by its message to me and don’t want to wait for another October. If you’ve never gone, go soon before it’s too late. I respect Nancy Holt and her feelings but, with heavy heart, I think I actually agree with Bitterman 31, Jan, 2008 3:59pm but wished that wasn’t true. Sooner than I’d ever want, one day the spiral will be a fleeting memory…
Smithson’s entropy theory has become a favorite argument among nature haters and greedy prophets of The Latter Days. His desperate irony should not be considered as a license to destroy. Smithson actually wanted his work to exist physically as long as possible:
“There’s a word called entropy. . . . It’s like the Spiral Jetty is physical enough to be able to withstand all these climate changes, yet it’s intimately involed with those climate changes and natural disturbances. That’s why I’m not really interested in conceptual art because that seems to avoid physical mass. You’re left mainly with an idea. Somehow to have something physical that generates ideas is more interesting to me than just an idea that might generate something physical.”
R. Smithson, Salt Lake City, 1972
Interview with Gianni Pettena
Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. Jack Flam, ed. (U. of California Press, 1996), 298-99
For those just joining the conversation, Utah has extended the period for comments to February 13th. Also, I have responded to many of the above criticisms in a new post. Thanks everyone for your thoughts so far on the subject!
It’s me again,
I forgot to remind you of the fact that the State of Utah and its Division of Oil, Gas & Mining, who are currently examining the West Rozel drilling application, have recently spent a fortune to rid the site of tons of indistrial waste and debris left by previous oil explorations (in the words of Smithson, “The products of a Devonian industry, the remnants of a Silurian technology,”… “man-made systems mired in abandoned hopes”). They wrote in May 2006:
“In addition to the earthwork art and natural wonders such as red brine, white salt, black basalt, and crude oil seeps, tons of industrial debris left from decades of activity at Rozel Point was obvious to anyone who visited the area. Although the natural oil seeps continue to flow, we are pleased to report that the debris is now a thing of the past!”
http://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/geosights/rozeljetty_revisited.htm
http://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/snt38-2.pdf
“Mr. Bitterman,” a fake name with fake ideas, seems to conceals some idustrial lobbyist trying to manipulate the American utopian/apocalyptic vision. The end of time is not near, neither is the end of stupidness. We only have one earth left, don’t believe those who tell you that Mars is next. Those losers just need a few more bucks for whores in their bubble tubs, leather in their cars, gold taps and marble in their bathrooms: “My kingdom for a 500 horsepower”…
Smithson’s environmental view evolved with time. His apocalyptic tendencies waned throughout the years and he became more and more involved in reclamation projects. Spiral Jetty and Broken Circle are reclamation works. RS distrusted reckless developers (”The Monuments of Passaic,” “Hotel Palenque”) and mining companies, but he needed their cooperation to achieve his reclamation proposals.
Smithson bought Little Fort Island in Maine in 1971 for a possible earthwork. In 1972 he decided not to use it because it was “too scenic.” (Hobbs, Robert Smithson: Sculpture, 242)
In support of reclamation as a central theme to Spiral Jetty, editors Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz write this in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A source book of artist writings
(Stiles, Kristine, Selz, Peter: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, pg 503.)
On the subject of A. Bitterman, he does provide a url to his website, which makes him a little less anonymous than Foreman suggests.
For the pedestrian, the eerie quiet and desolation surrounding the Spiral Jetty is essential to the experience. For the pilot, the beauty of the site as you fly over and look down is remarkable. So many places are marred by oil and gas drilling now; Wyoming looks like tens of thousands of chicken pox marks. And then there is the folly of oil drilling in such a sensitive area for wildlife. This place should be left as is.
The Spiral Jetty is one of Smithson’s most moving and remarkable projects. It needs to be protected and preserved. In fitting with his philosophical views of “Entropy,” the abandoned debris should not have been removed. It was a statement. No more do-gooders trying to enhance the place and no more greedy companies raping the earth. Quit chipping away at what he did. Just leave it alone.
re: Foreman. “Smithson’s environmental view evolved with time.”
Current practioners of ecoart, while informed by the visual aesthetic of Smithson and other early land artists, have rejected the inherent relationship Smithson and others held to the environment as unwieldy, mysogynistic, uninformed, and destructive of the very same elements they purport to champion.
The ecoart movement is vast in scope. One major distinction with other art practices is a common theme of sustainability, not in conservation of the physical piece (there may not be one in the traditional sense) but in sustainability of the planet. Ego sustainment does not count except to advance the career of the artists involved. Surveys of the just how land art vision has evolved into something more, and in many times LESS CONCRETE can be found at greenmuseum.org and ecoartspace.org.
re: avatars. I suspect that Foreman has difficulty with the Guerilla Girls as well but finds Rambo perfectly suitable to his liking.
Hi there,
those folks asserting that if Smithson was alive he would applaud any oil drilling as another part of the process” is just absurd - you are all suffering from a bit of Smithsonitus. If you look at everyone from his generation, they’ve all followed the money, the security, the safeness of the art market, and the spiral jetty as it stands now is just another part of that “world”.
with that said, Oil drilling isn’t cool, and another anti-political stance would be to forget that there is another very serious bit of Oil drilling going on folks, in another part of the world of which you are implicit in…
[…] Via BoingBoing via Paddy […]
The Spiral Jetty vs. “blind progress”:
“I have already demonstrated that it is possible to combine reclamation and art in two completed projects–the Broken Circle in a sand quarry in Holland which was slated for reclamation, and the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake, Utah near an old oil mining region. …The artist must overcome the inequities that come in the wake of blind progress.”
–Robert Smithson, “Proposal,” 1972 in ‘RS: The Collected Writings.’ J.Flam, ed. (U. of Cal. Press, 1993), 380.
Trailer Trash at Work:
Besides drilling at West Rozel, the Canadian project aims at building a truck road and facilities at Promontory Point, jeopardizing the landscape, wildlife, and peacefulness around the Golden Spike National Historic Site. Remember your history books; 1869, the Transcontinental RR, Central Pacific and Union Pacific meeting at Promontory… Just check out what oil activities left behind at Rozel Point before the state of Utah eventually removed almost everything in Dec.2005 (a Flickr slideshow):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23489312@N08/sets/72157603841131133/show/
The fact is that the “art” encroached on the pristine nature of the Great Salt Lake as did the railroad at Promontory Point. Let’s stop talking about “pristine”! Art and utility must co-exist. Make it so, number one!
[…] http://www.artfagcity.com/2008/01/30/breaking-spiral-jetty-threatened-by-oil-drilling-plans/ […]
maybe we should wait to drill. we can survive 50.00 dollar a loaf of bread prices,right. we are going to destroy the world economy for a bunch of reject,environmentalist wacko, stalin type socialist, liberal, fruitloop, sociopathic frauds, that think a jetty is more important than human beings. global warming is a lie. i will have the last laugh when i die (50 years from now) and the world is still here. its a jetty, get over it. scientific fact: one volcanic eruption emits more pollution into the atmosphere than mankind has in the last 100 years.
I am a sculptor and was a resident of Utah for 15 years. Four years ago, I married my husband, sculptor Mark Stevenson, in the middle of the Spiral Jetty. My children and a few friends were present. The surface then was a fine pink salt that you can walk on like a frozen lake. My daughter stood barefoot holding a bouquet of black eyed susans. I married there not just for effect. I had sailed for many years on the Great Salt Lake, had explored alone it’s island. It is very, very quiet and very, very vast. There’s no way one can miss the noise or the impact of industry. Discarded debris is one thing. It can be beautiful and it is always quiet.
This is a piece of american art history! WTF! HOW DARE THEY TRY TO DESTROY THIS!!!!!!!
HERE’S A THOUGHT, IT’S CALLED LETS KEEP WHAT CULTURE WE HAVE AND PRESERVE IT.