Robert Smithson's Broken Circle Spiral Hill in the Netherlands

Land Arts Lives Conference in Netherlands to feature Holt/Smithson Foundation Executive Director Lisa Le Feuvre

The international conference Land Art Lives presented by Kunstmuseum M. and Land Art Flevoland will take place on October 3, 2024, in Lelystad in the province of Flevoland in central Netherlands. Holt/Smithson Foundation Executive Director Lisa Le Feuvre is one of the invited speakers and the Netherlands holds special importance for the legacy of Robert Smithson; Broken Circle / Spiral Hill in Emmen, Netherlands, is the only extant earthwork by Smithson outside of the United States.

The conference seeks to ask the following questions:Why is land art particularly relevant today? What are its new manifestations? How do we deal with these often impermanent works of art? And how does land art shed light on the urgent ecological and social issues of today? 

Invited speakers at Land Art Lives  include Humberto Moro from Dia Art Foundation, Lisa Le Feuvre from Holt/Smithshon Foundation, Britta Peters from Urbane Künste Ruht and Anja Novak from University of Amsterdam. In the afternoon of October 3 parallel working sessions on the future of land art, from political to practical, from historical to policy, from artistic to academic, will take place The day will be chaired by Meta Knol. In addition to the program, there will be ample opportunity to meet and delve further into reading and archival material.

In the lead up to the conference Holt/Smithson Foundation partnered with Land Art Contemporary (Netherlands) and Land Arts of the American West (Texas Tech University) to create the digital program From Dawn till Dusk: An online encounter between two earthworks by Robert Smithson. On September 10 we  presented 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, the seven-hour livestream view of the two earthworks featured an evolving program highlighting a myriad of voices and viewpoints. A report reflecting on From Dawn till Dusk can be viewed here. 

Further information and tickets for the Land Art Lives conference can be found on the Land Art Lives website.

Robert Smithson, Broken Circle / Spiral Hill (1971)
Emmen, The Netherlands

Broken Circle
Water, sand, and boulder
Diameter: 140 ft. (42.6 m); canal: 12 ft. (3.6 m) wide, 10-15 ft. (3-4.5 m) deep

Spiral Hill
Earth, topsoil, sand
Diameter: 75 ft. (22.9 m) at base

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

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In May of 1971 Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt returned to Florida to visit the Florida Keys, with Smithson seeking potential locations for his Island Maze and Forking Island. While these hypothetical earthworks exist today solely through Smithson's drawings, on this trip Smithson did plant an earthwork he called Mangrove Ring—which is also the subject of a short film of the same name by Nancy Holt. 

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Chapter Seven of Tuesday Texts

We are happy to announce that throughout October we are publishing a seventh chapter of our Tuesday Text Series as part of our ongoing Scholarly Text Program, which invites thinkers to focus on a single artwork by Holt and/or Smithson. 

Every Tuesday we will publish a text to our website that includes images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation reference, and endnotes pointing to the author’s references.

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Letters and early drawings by Robert Smithson published in Centre Pompidou journal

The Fall issue of the Centre Pompidou journal Les cahiers du musée national d’art moderne publishes for the very first time Robert Smithson’s letters and writings from Rome, accompanied by previously unpublished early drawings.

The French language publication includes translations of letters Smithson wrote to Nancy Holt in 1959-1961 and letters Smithson sent to George Lester between 1960 and 1963. George Lester offered Smithson his first solo international exhibition at Galleria George Lester in Rome in 1961.