How Do You Conserve Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty’? - NYTimes.com

In 1972, a year before his death in a plane crash at 35, the artist Robert Smithson wrote, “I am for an art that takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day.” And with the creation of his greatest work — “Spiral Jetty,” the huge counterclockwise curlicue of black basalt rock that juts into the Great Salt Lake in rural Utah — he certainly put that conviction to the test.

As part of a conservation effort, the Dia Art Foundation is working to systematically document Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” over time.