Bingham Copper Mining Pit—Utah / Reclamation Project

Robert Smithson
1973
Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, Utah, USA
Photostat, clear plastic overlay, grease pencil, and tape
18 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (47 x 34.3 cm)
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pat and John Rosenwald Gift

Part of a proposal for the reclamation of the world’s largest man-made excavation, this sketch outlines the design for a rotating disk at the base of Bingham Canyon Mine in Bingham, Utah. The disk serves as a platform from which viewers could observe the gradual reversal of industry back to nature. In the instance of a heavy rain, the crescent rises would jetty out of the pool of collected water. The existing spiral structure of the mine was in perfect alignment with Smithson’s aesthetic interests, and would remain unaltered. Initially proposed two years before his death, Bingham Canyon Reclamation would have been Smithson’s largest earth work to date.

Writing

Writing by the Artist

Untitled

Robert Smithson

Across the country there are many mining areas, disused quarries, and polluted lakes and rivers. One practical solution for the utilization of such devastated places would be land and water recycling in terms of “Earth Art.” Recently, when I was in Holland, I worked in a sand quarry that was slated for redevelopment. The Dutch are especially aware of the physical landscape. A dialectic between land reclamation and mining usage must be established. The artist and the miner must become conscious of themselves as natural agents. In effect, this extends to all kinds of mining and building. When the miner or builder loses sight of what he is doing through the abstractions of technology he cannot practically cope with necessity. The world needs coal and highways, but we do not need the results of strip-mining or Highway trusts. Economics, when abstracted from the world, is blind to natural processes. Art can become a resource, that mediates between the ecologist and the industrialist.

See Also