The Material Production of the Spiral Jetty: A Study of Culture in the Making

Abstract

The objective of this article is to open the 'black box' of artistic production in order to describe, in minute detail, culture in the making, that is, the process through which cultural forms grow into being and are materially accomplished. I will do so through the study of the morphogenetic process through which the Spiral Jetty, an earthwork sculpture created by the American artist Robert Smithson, came into being. This study will show that artistic production constitutes an irreducible form of material practice which cannot be adequately understood as an individual activity or as an activity guided or constrained by 'external' social factors. As I shall argue, the attention to the material practice of artistic production reveals a much needed insight into the practices, materials and processes through which culture is actually produced and materially accomplished.

Preserving the unpreservable: docile and unruly objects at MoMA

“…1 An exception to this dominant understanding of materials and their role can be found in recent developments within the sociology of art. Over the last decade, the field has witnessed the development of what some have begun to call "a new sociology of art," which has sought to reclaim the irreducibility of artworks and the need to study them on their own as sui generis objects of sociological study (Benzecry 2011;Born 2011;De la Fuente 2007;DeNora 2011;Domínguez Rubio and Silva 2013;Domínguez Rubio 2012;Griswold et al 2013;Hennion 1993;Wagner-Pacifici 2010). As the proponents of this emergent orientation claim, artworks cannot merely be seen as "outcomes" or "effects" of a prior set of social relations, or as the material "vehicles" of meaning, for this view tends to ignore their capacity to affect people and to create new social bonds, practices, and meanings.…”

“…Over the last few years, these calls to include the material into our understandings of cultural processes, meanings and forms have been taken up by a younger generation of cultural sociologists who have begun to explore, for example, how "intersubjectivity enabling-practices relate to the material environments in which they are enacted" (Jansen 2008, p. 152); how the interpretations of cultural meanings are affected by the materiality of the objects in which these meanings are inscribed (McDonnell 2010); how power and political structures are shaped and enacted through different material infrastructures (Carroll-Burke 2006); how the material making, unmaking, and remaking of icons can lead to the articulation of political identities and institutional reforms (Zubrzycki 2013); or how materials shape the way cultural forms are produced (Domínguez Rubio 2012).…”

Art history cold cases: artists’ labour in the factory

“…From this perspective, investigating artworks that rely on industrial materials and production modes calls for the analysis of the "concrete and direct evidence" that materials provide (Didi-Huberman, 2015, p. 42). Furthermore, it unravels the centrality of informal archives and "suspect evidence" related to tacit knowledge and subjective selfdocumentation in the reconstruction of hybrid artistic works and practices that, at the time when they were produced, prefigured a potential "future knowledge" (Domínguez Rubio, 2012;Rosnow and Fine, 1976;Schwab et al, 2013, p. 9). That contemporary artistic and curatorial practices show a renewed interest in outsiders' artefacts has enabled the different work modes adopted by art production in the factory to be read as potential art historical narratives through the lens of working-class studies and the contemporary material turn.…”

“…Drawing on the examples of the Voltron sculpture series by David Smith (1962); Yvonne Rainer's performance Carriage Discreteness (1966) and Stuart Brisley's work at the Hille Fellowship Poly Wheel factory (1970), I will propose that observing the production of artworks within industrial environments implies a twofold commitment for art history. On the one hand, investigating artworks relying on industrial materials and production modes calls for the analysis of the "concrete and direct evidence" that materials provide (DidiHuberman, 2015;Domínguez Rubio, 2012). On the other, they invite consideration of informal archives and "suspect evidence" related to the tacit knowledge of production, subjective self-documentation and oral history (Rosnow and Fine, 1976).…”

Catalyst: reimagining sustainability with and through fine art

“…However, art can also be considered to be inherently collaborative. Artists are set within networks of production and consumption that require a whole set of materials and other actors to bring a work of art into being (Becker 1982, Rubio 2012). In some ways, an artist's work is not so far removed from the scientist (de la Fuente 2007, Palsson et al 2013.…”