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Time Trip graphic a four part line of pink, rust, orange and yellow on a light yellow field with Time Trip in pink
Time Trip
Utah, Spiral Jetty, and Robert Smithson in the 1970s

Made possible with funding through support from the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

In April 1970, artist Robert Smithson accompanied a few contractors from Ogden, Utah to haul rocks, earth, and machinery across an unforgiving patch of land along Great Salt Lake’s northeastern shore. Upon Smithson’s return to the East Coast, the art world was stunned by what the artist created in Utah. In the years since its completion, Spiral Jetty (1970) remains one of the best-known examples not only of Smithson’s works but of Land art as a whole.

Welcome to Time Trip, a meditation on Spiral Jetty’s locale and the people who lived nearby at the time of the artwork’s construction. Journey to the time that Spiral Jetty took shape while, on the other end of Great Salt Lake, the University of Utah’s landscape underwent its own kind of transformation.

Inspired by Robert Smithson’s curiosity about the world and his creative responses to it, we invite visitors to explore art and archival material from the University of Utah’s collections that reflect the years that Smithson most frequently visited the state, including the period he briefly served as a visiting professor on its campus in 1972.

Robert Smithson faculty appointment files from University of Utah
Documents from Robert Smithson faculty file. University of Utah historical faculty files, Acc. 526, Box 57, Folder 21. University Archives and Records Management, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.

Why now?

History is a facsimile of events held together by flimsy biographical information.
-Robert Smithson, “Some Void Thoughts on Museums,” Arts Magazine, February 1967

In spite of Smithson’s skepticism of linear time and history, the temporal lens of today’s perspective may offer new interpretations on past events. Not quite an anniversary, Time Trip uses just over a half-century’s hindsight to reconsider Spiral Jetty through its human landscape and the countless ordinary Utahns who shared literal common ground with a world-famous work of art. 

In the form of archival material, history often provides not answers, but provokes further questions, as parallels between past and present emerge. As you navigate Time Trip, ask what features characterize the metropolis of 1970s Salt Lake City? What was it like to be a student on campus? Which of the then-raw and urgent debates now seem quaint and settled? Which remain as relevant today?  

Time Trip bids you to lay aside whatever assumptions you may carry about Utah, circa 1970, as you enter, and reflect upon how archives and artworks not only narrate a historical past but foreshadow our present and disclose our fears and longings for our collective future.

Click on the themes below to begin your Time Trip  

: Art and Architecture Center, University of Utah, 1971. University of Utah Facilities Planning and Construction Office records, Acc. 0416, Box 9, Building Files: Art and Architectur--Loose Material, 1968-73. University Archives and Records Management. J. Willard Marriott Library, the University of Utah.
A Complex of Interlocking Forms
Constructing the Arts Complex

In the fall of 1970, the University of Utah debuted a four million-dollar Art and Architecture Center to meet burgeoning student demand for arts education.

Brochure about the UMFA and recently-completed building, 1972.University of Utah Facilities Planning and Construction Office records, Acc. 0416, Box 9, Building Files: Art and Architecture—Loose Material, 1968-73. University Archives and Records Management. J. Willard Marriott Library, the University of Utah.
Going from Void to Void
Growing the UMFA

In 1968, Frank Sanguinetti was recruited a Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts to shepherd the institution’s move to modern quarters in 1970. 

At the University of Utah, a crowd gathers in protest of the Kent State murders, May 1970. University of Utah Archival Photograph collection, P0305, Campus Life: Demonstrations. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, the University of Utah.
Utah on a Turning Globe
Campus of Discontents

The University of Utah, like most college campuses around the United States, overflowed with passionate debate as the tensions of political and social issues swelled into tidal waves, with America’s involvement in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) one of students’ chief concerns.

Graphic design students display their anti-pollution poster designs, 1970. University of Utah Archival Photograph Collection P0305, D – Art 1970-1979, Folder 1, No. 3. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, the University of Utah. 
A Limited Closed System
Science, Technology, and the First Earth Day

Just as Smithson was settling Spiral Jetty’s last bits of basalt into place on the north side of Great Salt Lake, global ecological concerns were being addressed on the University of Utah campus. Many students were passionate about the topic, a subject frequently covered in campus publications including the 1969-1970 Utonian, the U’s yearbook.

Misch Kohn (1916-2003), Janis Joplin and Mies van der Rhoe, 1971, lithograph, 13 ½ in. x 9 5/8 in. Gift of Christopher A. & Janet Graf, UMFA1972.012.007.
The Will to Respond
Arts and Culture Answer Back

The University of Utah was a thriving center of creative activity during the 1970s. Music, dance, visual art and more provided students with rich cultural experiences on campus and beyond which spoke to their unique contemporary perspective. 

a four part striped line of yellow orange rust and pink forming the beginning for a counterclockwise spiral
Time Trip Resources
Curator’s Note about Time Trip

Time Trip was originally conceived as a physical exhibition, slated to debut just as Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty slid into its fiftieth year along Utah's Great Salt Lake. That same year - 2020 - evolved into an unforgettable global moment all its own. While canceling the exhibition in the wake of COVID-19 was among the smaller disappointments to mark that time, our team held on to the hope that we might find another venue to share the oft-overlooked story of Utah's embeddedness in contemporary culture during the era that Robert Smithson periodically visited our state.

Transforming Time Trip into a digital setting was not without its challenges, as we discovered that such an endeavor used resources, timelines, and procedures that were often outside our comfort zones. But it also opened up new possibilities: the virtual space enabled us to use the UMFA's and J. Willard Marriott Library's collections in a way that a physical setting wouldn't allow - either because the material exceeded the space of a single case, wall, or gallery, or because the object was too light-sensitive or otherwise physically fragile to be put on exhibition for too long, or because the casing requirements involved in displaying a multipage, multi-sided document presented a logistical nightmare. The virtual space became increasingly appealing as we considered that the potential audience for the exhibition would not be limited to the select individuals who were able to visit the Museum in person during the course of a single exhibit.
Perhaps the most compelling prospect for Time Trip's transformation into a digital exhibition is that it can - and ideally will - evolve over time. It is understood that new material may be added - new narratives may emerge. In this sense, Time Trip takes a cue from Smithson. Its propensity to change is built-in, assumed. And with the art and archival material that the exhibition is drawn from, how could it be otherwise? 
Time Trip would not have been possible without a few key people. First among them is Jessica Breiman, Art and Archives Metadata Librarian at the J. Willard Marriott Library, who has worked as the archivist on this project. Without her research and dedication, this project would not be half of what it is. Credit is also due to Annie Burbidge Ream, Co-Director of Learning and Engagement, K-12 and Family Programs, and Whitney Tassie, Senior Curator and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, whose insight into access and expertise on Smithson has been utterly invaluable throughout. UMFA Exhibitions Designer Sarah Palmer did a stunning job envisioning the 1.0 version of Time Trip. Adelaide Ryder, UMFA Digital Projects Manager, and Emma Ryder, UMFA Digital Media Coordinator, were equally skilled in the delicate task of translating its narrative into a virtual space - I am immeasurably indebted to you both for working with me through this process and owe you every dinner in the world. Finally, Joy Goh, UMFA Graphic Designer, thoughtfully created visuals inspired by archival images we shared with her.
In retrospect, it seems fitting that Time Trip was originally planned to be shown at the Marcia and John Price Building that houses the present-day location of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts: the building is sited just a few hundred yards from where many of the events covered in the exhibition took place. Echoes of Utah's seventies culture remains around campus, but were it not for my encounter with the archival material housed at the University of Utah - only a small sampling of which is shown here - I might be more inclined to overlook many of those tracings. Such is the joy of archives: discovering that the present and the past aren't, exactly. It is my sincere hope that Time Trip will elicit your curiosity and encourage you to do some exploring of your own.
-Alana Wolf, Collections Resource Curator, somewhere in mid-2021

University of Utah Salt Lake City Zoo, Arts and Parks

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