Robert Smithson

Spiral Jetty

Robert Smithson

This film, made by the artist, Robert Smithson, with the assistance of Virgina Dwan, Dwan Gallery & Douglas Christmas, Director, Ace Gallery, (the aforementioned Dwan & Christmas also assisted Smithson financially with the making of the Spiral Jetty), is a poetic and process minded film depicting a "portrait" of his renowned earth work -- The Spiral Jetty, as it juts into the shallows off the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake. A voice-over by Smithson reveals the evolution of the Spiral Jetty.

Mono Lake

Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson

Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt

Mono Lake is a document of a unique natural environment, a "home movie" of the artists' 1968 road trip, and an intimate view of three seminal figures in the earth art movement as they interact with the Western landscapes that are so central to their work.

Bob with Books

Nancy Holt

Robert Smithson

Shot on the roof of 799 Greenwich St., New York, Bob with Books is a short silent film by Nancy Holt on her husband, artist Robert Smithson, two years before he passed away.

The Making of Amarillo Ramp

Nancy Holt

Robert Smithson

The Making of Amarillo Ramp documents the construction of Robert Smithson's earthwork Amarillo Ramp. At age thirty-five, while photographing the site of the earthwork in progress, Smithson died in a small airplane accident, along with pilot Gale Ray Rogers and photographer Robert E. Curtin. After Smithson's passing, Nancy Holt, Richard Serra, and Tony Shafrazi completed Amarillo Ramp according to Smithson's specifications. This film documents the sounds and actions of the powerful machinery necessary to create an earthwork of this scale, while underscoring the human skill and personal relationships that were integral to the completion of the work.

Swamp

Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson

The action of the film is direct: Holt walks through the tall grasses of a swamp while filming with her Bolex camera, guided only by what she can see through the camera lens and by Smithson's verbal instructions. The viewer experiences the walk from Holt's point of view, seeing through her camera lens and hearing Smithson's spoken directions. Vision is obstructed and perception distorted as they stumble through the swamp grasses.

East Coast, West Coast

Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson

East Coast, West Coast, Holt and Smithson's first collaborative experiment with video, takes the form of a humorous bi-coastal art dialogue. Joined by their friends Joan Jonas and Peter Campus, Holt and Smithson improvise a conversation based on opposing - and stereotypical - positions of East Coast and West Coast art of the late 1960s. Holt assumes the role of an intellectual conceptual artist from New York, while Smithson plays the laid back Californian driven by feelings and instinct. Their deadpan exchange ironically lays bare the limitations and contradictions of both sides in the debate.