images of Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Broken Circle/Spiral Hill

From Dawn till Dusk on September 10

We are proud to present a special livestream conversation between two iconic earthworks by Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty (1970) and Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971). 

Broadcasting live from first light at Spiral Jetty, located  at the Great Salt Lake in the state of Utah, and concluding with last light at Broken Circle/Spiral Hill located in Emmen in Netherlands, this special digital event is a part of Land Art Lives, an on-going research project and upcoming international conference in the Netherlands on October 3, 2024, exploring the relevance of land art for our current times.

Link to livestream page.

Presented in collaboration with Kunstmuseum M. (Netherlands), Land Art Contemporary (Netherlands), Land Arts of the American West (Texas Tech University), and Holt/Smithson Foundation (New Mexico), the livestream will be available on September 10 through the Land Art Lives website.

In 1970 the artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973) created Spiral Jetty on the Rozel Point peninsula on the northeastern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Made from over six thousand tons of black basalt rocks and earth collected from the site, Spiral Jetty stretches 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide in a counterclockwise spiral. The following year Smithson was invited to create an earthwork in the Netherlands for the recurring outdoor exhibition Sonsbeek. Beside a working sand quarry in the province of Drenthe and cut into the side of a terminal moraine, Smithson created Broken Circle/Spiral Hill—his only extant earthwork outside of the United States. On September 10, a dialog will take place between the two sites via a simultaneous livestream broadcast that will begin with first light at Spiral Jetty in Utah and extend to last light at Broken Circle/Spiral Hill in the Netherlands.

Throughout the seven-hour program the livestream view of the two earthworks will be accompanied by an evolving program, highlighting a myriad of voices and viewpoints. Students from the Land Arts of the American West program will be on site with Spiral Jetty. Smithson’s writings relating to the two earthworks will be read aloud and later these voices will be joined by a recording from the musician Lee Ranaldo’s audio diary of trying to find Broken Circle/Spiral Hill while on tour with Sonic Youth in the Netherlands. The artist Tacita Dean will join the conversation from Emmen to share her impressions upon her first visit to Smithson’s Broken Circle/Spiral Hill and Spiral Jetty. At 11:00 am Mountain Time (7:00pm Central European Time), Tacita Dean and Chris Taylor, Director of Land Arts of the American West, will be in conversation with Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation, to discuss questions surrounding the relevance of land art today.
 

Event details:
September 10, 2024
2:00pm–9:00pm (Central European Time) // 6:00am–1:00pm (Mountain Time) 
Accessible via the Land Arts Lives website

Learn more about From Dawn till Dusk on our Programs Page.

Archived News

poster for Smithson's film Spiral Jetty 1970 cropped

Soft Network Benefit Auction

We are pleased to participate in the Soft Network Benefit Auction, open on Artsy from September 23 until October 7, 2026. The auction brings together works in support of Soft Network and the Artist Foundations and Estate Leaders List (AFELL), an international network for artists and stewards of artists’ estates and legacies. Holt/Smithson Foundation has donated two rare works of art by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson to the auction to help further this goal. 

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