The Spiral Jetty makes the Great Salt Lake a museum because a museum is constituted by collections with an institutional purpose that is expressed by staff and visitors. Museums also have three things in common: they contain objects that are given cultural significance which are assembled with some degree of intention and that come from the past (Pearce 7).
The Spiral Jetty is documented by the Dia Art Foundation’s Francesca Esmay because of its recent reappearance due to drought which has lowered the water levels in the Great Salt Lake. She is documenting the jetty every year in order to give curators and conservators a better idea of how it is changing. This shows that the piece has importance in the artistic world and is looking to be preserved so it can continue to be shown to the public. Robert Smithson’s artistic goal was to make “…’art that takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day’” (Kennedy 1), giving the Spiral Jetty meaningful cultural context because visitors to the site can interpret the artifact in this way. The reason that the piece is considered an artifact is because by Pearce’s standards it is made by art or skill and applies human technology to the natural world (6). Since museums are not determined by the amount of objects within them the Spiral Jetty, being an artifact, makes the place where it resides, the Great Salt Lake, a museum.
While the Great Salt Lake is not a typical museum that you would find in a city or on a college campus, it shares the same characteristics of museums because the artifact within it is from the past and has cultural context. The Dia Art Foundation which owns the piece is documenting how it has changed and the decrease in water levels of the Great Salt Lake has allowed visitors to once again visit the site and interpret it in their own way.
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Sophaemae6,
ReplyDeleteYou have a fluid interpretation of what a museum is. I was convinced that this question had only one answer and that was of course: it was not. In the few weeks of the class I‘ve come to see your point. Classical walls and a roof, with a fancy sign at the door aren’t really necessary to define the space enclosed. They can be of any material or shape. The Pearl Harbor Museum would probably be less if it didn’t include the ships submerged in the harbor with the warriors within. Having these objects in water may be the best way to preserve them and fulfill the obligations and purpose of the museum director and staff.