Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

A woman standing next to a film camera and tripod on the edge of a dry lakebed.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

A dump truck dumping rock and earth at the edge of a lakebed

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

a red angus cow standing in a field looking at the camera.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

a close-up image of a person adjusting the focus on a film camera, which is pointed at the viewer.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

a circular ramp made of earth, emerging out of a dry lakebed

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

A young man taking a picture toward the camera with a dry lakebed in the background.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

A frontloader driving up an earthen ramp.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

A yellow front loader and a red dump truck driving past each other

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

a dry lakebed with cracks in the earth.

Still from Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

16 mm film

Color, sound

Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Film & Video

The Making of Amarillo Ramp

Nancy Holt
1973/2013
Tecovas Lake, Amarillo, Texas, USA
16 mm film, color, sound
Duration: 31 minutes, 52 seconds
© Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

The Making of Amarillo Ramp  documents the construction of Robert Smithson's earthwork Amarillo Ramp.  At age thirty-five, while photographing  the site of the earthwork in progress, Smithson died in a small airplane accident, along with pilot Gale Ray Rogers and photographer Robert E. Curtin. After Smithson's passing, Nancy Holt, Richard Serra, and Tony Shafrazi completed Amarillo Ramp according to Smithson's specifications. This film documents the sounds and actions of the powerful machinery necessary to create an earthwork of this scale, while underscoring the human skill and personal relationships that were integral to the completion of the work.

Nancy Holt shot this film on site in 1973, however the film was not edited until 2013. The Making of Amarillo Ramp premiered at the opening of Robert Smithson in Texas, at the Dallas Museum of Art in November of 2013.

Related Info

Earthwork
The earth and rock circle of Smithson's Amarillo Ramp spiraling out of the earth.
Amarillo Ramp
Robert Smithson
1973
Earthwork

Constructed to emerge from the base of an artificial lake, ​Amarillo Ramp ​now lies in a dried-up basin, its original structure altered by erosion. It is Smithson’s final earthwork; while surveying the site in 1973, Smithson was killed in a plane crash alongside pilot Gale Ray Rogers and photographer Robert E. Curtin. The sculpture was posthumously completed by Nancy Holt and artists Tony Shafrazi and Richard Serra. Overgrown with mesquite, its once-defined edges sloping into the earth, ​Amarillo Ramp i​s a solemn illustration of entropy.

See Also

a young man and woman sitting side by side in the backseat of a car
Mono Lake
Robert Smithson
1968/2004
Mono Lake, California, USA