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Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West
 
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Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West [Hardcover]

Erin Hogan (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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From Publishers Weekly

Hogan, director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago and a recovering art historian with decidedly urban sensibilities, set out on a road trip to visit the most significant works of land art in the American West and to make an experimental assault on her fear of solitude. Hogan's journey in her Volkswagen Jetta began with Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty by the Great Salt Lake; in eight more chapters she documents her visits to Michael Heizer's Double Negative in Nevada, Walter De Maria's Lightning Field in New Mexico, failed attempts to find Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels and James Turrell's Roden Crater, along with stops in Moab, Utah; Juárez, Mexico; and Marfa, Tex., the contemporary art pilgrim's mecca. Hogan's pilgrimage, sparsely illustrated, is part well-informed art historical travelogue and part light foray into self-discovery; her prose is lucid, energetic and expressive, and she is an affable guide. But this narrative does not convincingly convey the depth of her interior journey or the aesthetic insight that Hogan sought to experience. 26 b&w photos, 1 map. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“I was never quite sure what Hogan was looking for when she set out . . . or indeed whether she found it. But I loved the ride. In Spiral Jetta, an unashamedly honest, slyly uproarious, ever-probing book, art doesn’t magically have the power to change lives, but it can, perhaps no less powerfully, change ways of seeing.”—Tom Vanderbilt, New York Times
(Tom Vanderbilt New York Times )

“The title’s overly coy allusion to Robert Smithson’s masterpiece doesn’t detract from a smart and winning book. Hogan, the public-affairs director at the Art Institute of Chicago, does her best to arrange an unhappy marriage—a land-art tour ‘through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas’ and ‘through the states of anxiety, drunkenness, disorientation, and heat exhaustion’—but the reader emerges enlightened and even delighted. After all, making critical theory fun is quite a feat. Casually scrutinizing the artistic works Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, Roden Crater, and Lightning Field while gamely playing up her fish-out-of-water status, Hogan delivers an ingeniously engaging travelogue-cum-art history.”
(Atlantic )

“Across this marvelously unexpected little road saga, the stud muffin cowboys of late twentieth century American art at long last meet their sly gamine match.  Pretty much doing for Land Art what Geoff Dyer did for D. H. Lawrence, Ms. Hogan, an urban fish decidedly out of water, flopping about in the high desert parch, makes for marvelously endearing company.  An at times harrowingly (albeit comically) unreliable navigator (who doesn''t bring a compass along on solo treks across such vast empty expanses?), Hogan nevertheless then manages to deploy an expertly modulated prose, tracking the heaviest of subjects with the lightest of touches, melding gravitas and whimsy (vodka and tonic), in a narrative that in the end, like the art it surveys, manages to be about what it is to be an individual alone—pinprick-contingent, achingly vulnerable, gobsmacked enthralled—in the face of all that is.”
(Lawrence Weschler )

“Blending a humorous travelogue and serious musings, in Spiral Jetta she winds her car and the reader through the complexities of 1970s earthworks and contemporary aesthetics via a varied landscape of people, places, and art. . .  She is great at keeping the reader’s attention: two pages of art philosophy; ten pages of fun.”
(Mary Parrish Science )

"[An] engaging and sometimes hilarious account of a ''recovering art historian'' facing an early midlife crisis. . . . Hogan eloquently discusses the sublime and the intimate . . . and she makes us feel as if we''re right down in the trench with her."—Marc Vincent, Plain Dealer
(Marc Vincent Plain Dealer )
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0 of 6 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars AT LAST, Jun 29 2008
By 
This review is from: Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (Hardcover)
More junk from an-other little mouse. ET call home. Catch up to Wall-e. Pow'er to the Flow'er!
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Amazon.com: 3.8 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book about the so-called "Dia" trail of earthworks, Jun 15 2008
By Harriet Nethery "Reads everything" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (Hardcover)
Many art historians have written about the great modern earthworks of the American West and Southwest, but this is the first travel book to do so. What sets this book apart from others of its kind is the quality of the writing and the personality of the author, Erin Hogan. Hogan, an avowed urbanista from Chicago, writes with real comedic flair about the road trip she took in her trusty VW Jetta to visit the legendary Spiral Jetty, Lightning Field, Double Negative, Rodencrater, and Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa (almost all of them funded by the Dia Foundation). Writing in a picaresque mode, along the way she encounters some pretty hairy and scary characters straight out of the old Wild West, but gone wrong, terribly wron. While her discussions of the formidable works of Judd, Smithson et al are excellent and accessible for general readers, the account of her accidental discovery of a folk-art site known as Hole 'n' the Rock is absolutely transcendent, right up there on a par with Perelman, Benchley, Woody Allen. A fabulous read. I hope we'll be seeing more from this talented writer--and soon.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Makes the abstract accessible, Sep 10 2009
By EHN - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (Hardcover)
Ironically, it seemed to me that the most compelling chapter was the one covering Juarez, Mexico. The description had an edge that was absent in most other parts of the book except the accounts of her bar visit. I enjoyed reading the book and hope to visit some of the places described. Overall the Spiral Jetta is well written although I caught a a couple repetitions that a good editor should have flagged. The questions Ms. Hogan raises about the market, high/hip modernism, and money are worth considering in greater depth. On a personal level I was surprised by the appearance of the boyfriend halfway through after the trip had been billed as chance for her to learn to be alone. I wanted to know why that idea was put aside. This sounds like a negative review but it shouldn't be. The author's voice was honest and the topic is intriguing. I imagine it would also be useful to anyone planning a trip to the Lightning Field or the other places she covers. They all seemed exceptionally hard to find.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fun, Informative Read, July 26 2008
By Doreen Orion MD "author, QUEEN OF THE ROAD" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (Hardcover)
As a woman who also took a road trip (well, OK, it was in a converted bus with my husband, pets, 200 pairs of shoes - and I still had to be dragged kicking and screaming), and lived to write about it, I had high expectations for this book. I was not disappointed. Even though I've never been that interested in "land art," Hogan nevertheless manages to bring it to life with humor and grace. I could also relate to her many misadventures as well as her growth during the trip, and I'm certain other readers will love going along for this ride.
› Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  3.8 out of 5 stars 
 
 
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