This is a piece by Robert Smithson, a Land Artist who worked in the 1960’s – 70’s, his work was a mixture of gallery based projects and also land sculptures, which were collectively called ‘Earthworks’. This piece is called Spiral Hill, and it is very similar looking to the slag heaps found around 'The Eden Project' and St Austell.
Picture of 'Slag Heap's' near St AustellRobert Smithson married Nancy Holt, also a land artist who famously produced ‘Sun Tunnels’ (1976) in Utah State, this piece recently featured on Channel 4’s “The Sculpture Diaries” (14th Sept 2008.) The tunnels are concrete tubes of a nine foot diameter and eighteen feet long. The tunnels have small holes drilled into them, which apparently align to star constellations and sunsets in the winter and summer solstices.
www.clui.org
see these photos in context, "Sun Tunnels'
see these photos in context, "Sun Tunnels'
Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt were highly acclaimed artists, they were the forerunners of the land art movement in America, with artists such as Robert Morris, Sol Lewitt and Donald Judd. These artists were generally known as minimalists and conceptual artists, often working with ideas to do with perception, society and philosophy stripping ideas back to the minimum and representing these in their sculptures. Their works reflect aspects of current opinion not dissimilar to today’s artists working with provocative social ideas. At the time of Spiral Jetty and Spiral Hill Robert Smithson was making links between industrialisation and land use, for example in an interview with Moria Roth, he describes his own understanding of Non-Sites.
“Non-Sites are the actualisation of the dialectic between the site and the non-site”
page 92 Robert Smithson
Non-sites can be interpreted as areas of land which have no use, due to the fact that they are a throw back of industry – through using land in an industrial way, for example in mining, the wreckage that is left does not lend itself to any kind of renewal. Huge amounts of money and labour would be needed to regenerate areas such as this. Non-sites can also be understood as areas either physical or mental which do not fall into any description bracket, somehow intangible.
Trying to find the links between my ideas and my history has always been quite confusing, but I just remembered a fact, stupidly because it has been staring me in the face for the last however many years. I was brought up in Warwickshire next to the Grand Union Canal, and my father lived in the nearby village of Long Itchington. En-route between my mum’s home and my father’s home was a village called Stockton, it’s only claim to fame – The Cement Works and Cally Pits. Both of these locations were quarries, The Cement Works, was originally called Nelson Cement Works, then later bought out by Rugby Cement. Cally Pits is in Stockton, and separate from Rugby Cement, but at some point the two could have been connected as they are about 1 mile apart.
Veiw of the lake at Cally Pits, the concrete structure in the middle is part of the old workings of the site - maybe a water tower. Below is a close up image.
These pictures are taken from a photographic website; http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/40380View of ‘The Cement Works’ from the ‘Blue Lias’ at Stockton. The chimney in the background is part of the Cement Works and can be seen from miles around. The Cement Works are now being redeveloped into a recycling site which will provide energy to power the nearby Rugby Cement. When looking from the road you can see how big the quarries are, and dotted all around the area for miles are similar flooded quarries, obvilousley a relic from the past.
Having grown up with fields, and as a kid played in the area I am not surprised that the landscape has left some kind of imprint. Where I lived was quite remote so I instead of going and messing around in town I would end up in a field or on the canal with my sisters stepping in ditches - kind of annoying at the time because I did want to be in town, but looking back it was fun.
