Framing the Expanded Field: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty

In 1979, art critic and historian Rosalind E. Krauss published an essay titled “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” in the arts journal October. Krauss’s seminal text examines monumental sculptural projects created to exist outside of the confines of the museum or gallery, coining the phrase, “the expanded field.” At the beginning of that same decade, Robert Smithson (American, 1938–1973) completed his iconic project of Spiral Jetty (1970), a pathway of rock and earth forming a spiral in the basin of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and documented the Land Art site in a 35-minute long film.

Beginning with maps and geological data, the film then shows the work being made by dump trucks and bulldozers moving tons of basalt rock to make the walkable path out onto the water. Lastly, the camera follows Smithson from behind and above in a helicopter, as he navigates the site, the overhead shots showing the impact of the jetty in the immediate environment. In its complete demonstration of Spiral Jetty, the film brings the experience, that of the expanded field, into the camera frame.

This exhibition is organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art.