Spiral Jetty: Allegory and the Recovery of the Elemental
Spiral Jetty: Allegory and the Recovery of the Elemental
This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the Spiral Jetty of Robert Smithson, an iconic earthwork made up of black basalt rock and soil. It discusses several reasons why the artwork is a turning point in the development of earth art, such as the establishment of the possibility of a complex synthesis of art and earth, and showing how textual forms could be affected by and were ultimately receptive to elementals leading to the earth to bear on the discursive malleability of the artwork. It explores the artwork’s form of mixed media, being a sculpture, an essay, and a film. It examines Smithson’s encapsulation of the coexistence of the discursive and material spheres of art as they surge up within one another.
Keywords: Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson, black basalt rock, soil, earth art, mixed media, discursive malleability earthwork
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