I've been working on a shot-for-shot remake of the Spiral Jetty film for a while, and so I'm quite familiar with the storyboard-like drawings Smithson did for it. Familiar with them as drawings, that is. He called them Movie Treatments.
It's a little embarrassing to admit I didn't realize Smithson had used a treatment/storyboard for the flyer/poster of the 1970 Dwan Gallery exhibition of Spiral Jetty until I read it in Kathleen Merrill Campagnolo's essay on the Jetty and its camera imagery in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art Journal. But there it is:
DWAN 29 WEST 57 STREET NEW YORK OPENING OCTOBER 31 TO NOVEMBER 25The Dwan exhibition consisted primarily of Gianfranco Gorgoni's large-format photos of the Jetty, eight of which were included in Kynaston McShine's historic "Information" show at the Museum of Modern Art that summer.
A 16 MM, 35 MINUTE COLOR AND SOUND FILM ON THE SPIRAL JETTY WILL
BE SHOWN DAILY AT 2:00 IN THE GALLERY FOR THE DURATION OF EXHIBITION.
Given the iconic aspects of the photos and the powerful influence of the film--not to mention the experience of visiting the Jetty itself--it's somehow odd to think of encountering the Jetty first in terms of Smithson's site/non-site paradigm, as a situation represented in a gallery.
It's also interesting to note that the film only played once a day, not on a continuous loop as is often the case now. It was an event more than an installation.
Anyway, I would like you to send me one of these posters, please. If you have one you don't need, or perhaps some extras. It need not be signed. Thank you.
