casting a glance

James Benning | 2007 | 81 minutes | 16mm projection | 16mm print courtesy of Canyon Cinema

A cinematic tribute to, meditation on, and historic simulation of Robert Smithson’s monumental earthwork, Spiral Jetty, conceived within the shifting ecology of the Great Salt Lake.

A landscape portrait told in 80 stationary takes, casting a glance is also a structuralist ode to artist Robert Smithson, whose vision of moving 6,500 tons of earth, rock, and algae into a vast coil on Utah’s saltwater, terminal lake would emerge as one of the great earthworks of the last century.

This is the first event of "Sun, Salt, Spiral", a series of film screenings and workshops devoted to the work of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson that continues at Mini Mart City Park in May.

On Site is curated by David Dinnell, Ellen Ito and Jay Kuehner