EARTH ART
SPIRAL JETTY
I have always been fascinated with the many possibilities that can transform the landscape into an art form. The Earth artists of the 60’s and 70’s believed that art should be available to everyone and therefore should be created and displayed outside of the structure of museums and galleries.
In the summer of 2005 I photographed Robert Smithson‘s “Spiral Jetty” at Rozel Point in the Great Salt Lake, Utah with black and white infrared film. Would infrared film capture the hidden spirit of this unusual site? The juxtapositions of water, rocks, and salt in this environment were perfect for recording infrared light. Smithson wanted to create a sense of the primordial past and infrared film does just that—a past and a future—constantly changing with the Great Salt Lake. As the sun shifts and the tides change the Spiral Jetty appears and disappears.
SUN TUNNELS
In 1973, the year of Smithson’s death, Nancy Holt (Smithson’s widow) finished “The Sun Tunnels” located in Lucien, Utah. Holt was fascinated with light and the effects that the changing light would have in these tunnels. She placed four concrete cylinders in a formation whereby one cylinder‘s interior would be lit during the summer solstice and the opposite cylinder would be lit during the winter solstice. Each of the four would be pierced with the patterns of four constellations. By using infrared film, I was able to record the various shapes that these tunnels formed with the changes in light.
All Images: 2005, Platinum Prints
