from ARTNews Online
Moving Mountains, Walking on Water
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When the outdoor environment is the work of art - much of what has been termed as Earthworks or Land Art - it is perhaps an understatement to say that the conservation of such art is a daunting task, indeed. Perhaps, it is pertinent to clarify: "Why are we considering the conservation of such sites in the first place?" A previous New York Times article discussing Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty raised the particularly vexing question of whether conservation or restoration is even necessary at all, although the work is indeed "deteriorating":

But the idea of doing anything to this artwork worries some people. And the intentions of the artist, who died in a plane crash at 35 in 1973, are not clear.

"When refurbishing earthworks, you don't want to create a Tussaud's wax sculpture," said Robert Storr, a former senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a professor at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. "Earthworks were not made to last forever. There is a danger when restoring them to make a more perfect thing than was originally done."