Spiral Jetty is an earthwork by the American sculptor Robert Smithson, built in April 1970 at Rozel Point on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. A $9,000 grant from the Dwan Gallery in New York paid for it.
The counterclockwise coil of basalt rock, mud and salt crystals is 1,509 feet (460 meters) long and 15 feet (4.6 meters) wide. The first version took six days, and Smithson reshaped it over three more. The red color of the surrounding water, from salt-tolerant bacteria and algae, helped him choose the site.
The lake covered the jetty around 1972, and drought exposed it again from the early 2000s. The Dia Art Foundation received it in 1999. Utah named it the state work of land art in 2017, and it joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
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