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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Visual Art The Blind Art Lover from Seattle Will Not Own the Land Under Spiral Jetty

Posted by Jen Graves on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:19 AM

Kelly O
Herbert Steiner is such a cool guy.

It's official: The protection of Spiral Jetty will be secured not only by its faraway owners, Dia Art Foundation, but also by folks on the ground, the Great Salt Lake Institute and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

It's a think-global-act-local solution to the weird problem that arose last year when it looked like Dia had somehow let the lease of the world-famous artwork lapse. At that point, an even weirder thing happened: Herbert Steiner of Seattle, a nearly 90-year-old retired math teacher-cum-train aficionado who happened to also be the patron of a piece of land art in Utah—and a blind man—stepped forward to say he might want to take over the Spiral Jetty lease.

That wouldn't have made much sense, either for Steiner, who is hardly made of money, or for Smithson's artwork. But it was a gesture of love, like the rest of Steiner's amazing life.

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I've been out to the spiral jetty and it is amazing. Make the trip if you can. I'm glad there are those out there who want to preserve such work. Cheers to them.

Posted by Keith G on January 18, 2012 at 4:30 PM