Breaking Ground: Broken Circle / Spiral Hill (1971-2011)

Robert Smithson often made films and videos to accompany his Land Art pieces, several of them in collaboration with his wife, artist Nancy Holt. In 1971, she filmed the creation of Smithson’s two earthworks at Emmen, in Holland, for the historic exhibit Sonsbeek 71. This double piece, made on the site of an old sand-mine, is the only permanent work in Europe by the author of the majestic Spiral Jetty (1970). The piece is linked to the idea of this film, which Smithson, who died in a 1973 plane crash, was unable to complete. Following traces of the artist’s plans, Holt finished it in 2011, in collaboration with Theo Tegelaers, combining original material from the period with aerial views of the site shot in the present (using a way of shooting that Smithson considered fundamental for showing his works), with inserts of archival footage of the devastating flood that hit Holland in 1953. These images (like the presence of the boulder in Broken Circle), take us back to the artist’s reflections on Nature, which we hear in his own voice. The video is a precious document on the Emmen works and their legendary author’s poetics.