Fieldworks from the Museum of the Void. 

Curated by Donald Smith.
Chelsea Space, Chelsea College of Art at University of the Arts, London, 2010

This exhibition featured a research station and fieldworks made in Utah, USA between 2008-10. In particular, the exhibition drew attention to Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, a canonical piece of Land Art which had been under threat from phosphate extraction in the Great Salt Lake, due to the need for organic fertilisers for nuts, fruits and other crops in the USA. 

The installation connects and reconnects Smithson writing on sites and non-sites, futility, and the idea of the Great Salt Lake area as a museum of the void. 

A structure placed at the remote Spiral Jetty is seen in the gallery (site/non-site) and in a film, which also charts the documentation (preservation) by archivists from the Getty Museum of a work maintained by the DIA foundation.

‘Entropic popsicles’ that were offered to visitors at Spiral Jetty are gifted to visitors to the exhibition who sign a petition to save the site from the mineral extraction. In activating the installation, the project asserts Smithson notion of the entropic as a condition of art; whilst challenging our acceptance that the impact of extraction on our landscape has consequences for land art itself.

Supported by Center for Land Use Interpretation (Residency) with The Henry Moore Foundation.

A catalgoue is available from Chelsea Space. Or see Artist Books