Spiral Jetty

Spiral Jetty, created by Robert Smithson on the Great Salt Lake in Utah in April 1970, is a monumental earthwork of mud, salt crystals, and basalt formed into a counterclockwise coil. Regarded as Smithson’s most important work and a defining piece of American land art, it was shaped with heavy equipment by contractor Bob Phillips near Rozel Point, where red, highly saline water and an industrial lakeshore drew the artist’s interest. Its meaning depends on changing lake levels, which alternately submerge or expose it, reflecting Smithson’s focus on geology, time, and entropy. Later preservation efforts recognized its significance amid environmental and development pressures.

Thatcher, Utah · United States