Measuring Change (2016)

Towards the end of 2015 James Benning made one of his occasional expeditions to Utah to the place where Robert Smithsons colossal landsculpture Spiral Jetty 1970 extends out into the Great Salt Lake The waterlevel was low leaving the vast bulk of the Jetty exposed in the crisp air His film measuring change captures two thirtyminute periods of that particular day in the unblinking unmoving takes that have become his trademarkbeginning at 857am and 312pm respectively A belated digital companion piece to his 16mm masterpiece casting a glance 2007 this new film hypnotically contemplates Smithsons artwork in relation to its wider environment and to the humans who walk on and around its gargantuan coils