Art, especially an art like Smithson’s, requires an ability go think past easy categories such as the aesthetic. Writing over Spiral Jetty with access roads & pipelines & cranes is, yes, akin to slashing an old master painting with a knife. An act of vandalism. And yet, it is, on the other hand, consistent with the conception of Smithson’s art that the jetty would be threatened, even “ruined” by future human activity. Landscapes are inevitably changed by human activity — I’ve seen whole mountainsides in Vietnam terraced into twelve-foot wide rice fields — and Spiral Jetty will be transformed by human activity over generations.

@ Sharp Sand

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