Robert Smithson, Evel Knievel, and the Landscape of Reclamation

摘要

Some mischance of sublunary matters rather than the harmony of the spheres is to be found in the fact that Robert Smith-son died tragically in a plane crash on the fourth anniversary of Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong's post- (or neo-) Walpolian "giant leap" (July 20,1969, 20:17:39 GMT). According to the National Transportation Safety Board accident report, Gale Ray Rogers, the pilot of the twin engine Beechcraft E55 Baron, "diverted attention from operation of [the] aircraft," which had been chartered by Smithson for "photographing sculpture site." The site (in the sense resonantly articulated by Smithson) was the ranch of Stanley Marsh 3, oil heir, and occasional art patron, located about 17 miles northwest of Amarillo, Texas. Having failed to "obtain/ maintain flying speed," at 10:15 a.m., July 20,1973, the aircraft crashed into a low mesa-like promontory that provided a viewpoint of the lakebed-part of a Yeomans Keyline artificial irrigation system-where Smithson had staked out his earth art project, Amarillo Ramp. Examination of the wrecked Beechcraft revealed its landing gear to be down and its wing flaps in the approach position. Twenty-three-year-old Richard E. Curtin, a Marsh ranch hand and amateur photographer, who had been hired to take the aerial shots, was pronounced dead at the scene, along with the pilot and Smithson.