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Nancy Holt
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Nancy Holt
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Nancy Holt (April 5, 1938 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist most known for her public sculpture, installation art, concrete poetry, and land art. Throughout her career, Holt also produced works in other media, including film and photography. Since 2018, her legacy has been cared for by Holt/Smithson Foundation.

Key Information

Biography

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Nancy Holt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1938.[1][2] An only child, she spent a great deal of her childhood in New Jersey,[3] where her father worked as a chemical engineer and her mother was a homemaker.[4] She studied biology[4] at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.[1][3] Nancy graduated in 1960 and went on a trip to Europe with her friends.[5] Three years after graduating, she married fellow land art artist Robert Smithson[1] in 1963.

Holt began her artistic career as a photographer and as a video artist. In 1974, she collaborated with fellow artist Richard Serra on Boomerang, in which he videotaped her listening to her own voice echoing back into a pair of headphones after a time lag, as she described the disorienting experience.[4][1]

Her involvement with photography and camera optics are thought to have influenced her later earthworks, which are "literally seeing devices, fixed points for tracking the positions of the sun, earth and stars."[6] Today Holt is most widely known for her large-scale environmental works, Sun Tunnels and Dark Star Park. However, she created site and time-specific environmental works in public places all over the world. Holt contributed to various publications, which have featured both her written articles and photographs. She also authored several books. Holt received five National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, New York Creative Artist Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.[3] Holt along with Beverly Pepper was a recipient of the International Sculpture Center's 2013 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. From 1995 to 2013, she worked and resided in Galisteo, New Mexico.[7]

In 2008 Holt helped rally opposition to a plan for exploratory drilling near the site of Smithson's Spiral Jetty at the Great Salt Lake in rural Utah.[4][8] After Smithson's death, Holt never remarried.[4] Holt died in New York City on February 8, 2014, at the age of 75.[9]

Artistic style

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The land art tradition

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Holt is associated with earthworks or land art. Land art emerged in the 1960s, coinciding with a growing ecology movement in the United States, which asked people to become more aware of the negative impact they can have on the natural environment. Land art changed the way people thought of art; it took art out of the gallery or museum and into the natural landscape, the product of which were huge works engaging elements of the environment. Unlike much of the commercialized art during this time period, land art could not be bought or sold on the art market. Thus, it shifted the perspective of how people all over the world viewed art.

Land art was typically created in remote, uninhabited regions of the country, particularly the Southwest. Some attribute this popular location for land art to artists’ need to escape the turmoil in the United States during the 1960s and 70s by turning to the open, uncorrupted land of the West.[6] Holt believed this artistic movement came about in the United States due to the vastness of the American landscape.[10] As a result of earthworks not being easily accessible to the public, documentation in photographs, videos, drawings became imperative to their being seen. The first exhibit of contemporary land art was at the Virginia Dwan Gallery in New York in 1968.[11] Other earth artists who emerged during this period include Robert Smithson, James Turrell, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim and Peter Hutchinson.

Perception of time and space

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Holt's works of art often deal with issues of how people perceive time and space. The various monumental works she created blend with and complement their environment. Works such as Hydra’s Head do not merely sit in their environments, but are made of the land, stand on it and are created to be harmonious with the land. The pools in this work are at the top of concrete tubes imbedded in the ground. The land already at the site surrounds these pools. They reflect the natural landscape, while not disturbing it. Holt thought about human scale in relation to the works she created.[12] People can interact with the works and become more aware of space, of their own visual perception, and of the order of the universe.[12] Holt's works incorporate the passage of time and also function to keep time. For example, Annual Ring functions so that when sunlight falls through the hole in the dome and fits perfectly into a ring on the ground, it is solar noon on the summer solstice.[12] At different times, the sun falls differently on the work and other holes in the dome align with celestial occurrences. Holt has said that she is concerned with making art that not only makes an impact visually, but is also functional and necessary in society,[13] as seen in works like Sky Mound, which serves a dual function as a sculpture and park and it also generates alternative energy.

In her works, Holt created an intimate connection to nature and the stars, saying, "I feel that the need to look at the sky-at the moon and the stars-is very basic, and it is inside all of us. So when I say my work is an exteriorization of my own inner reality, I mean I am giving back to people through art what they already have in them."[12]

Collaboration

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Collaboration with architects, engineers, construction crews and the like is an essential part of creating land art. Solar Rotary is a work located on the campus of the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. The work, consists of 20 ft (6.1 m). aluminum poles topped with a swirl of metal called a shadow caster, which casts a circle of light on a central seat when it is solar noon on the day of the summer solstice. On five days a year at different times, the shadow caster is designed to create a circle of light around plaques placed in the ground that mark important events in Florida's history.[14] Thus, for Solar Rotary, Holt employed Dr. Jack Robinson, an archaeo-astronomer and professor to help her, among other things, to plot the sun's coordinates for the work.[14] For almost all of Holt's works, she worked with a collaborator and or collaborators. For Dark Star Park, Holt coordinated with developer J.W. Kaempfer, Jr., of the Kaempfer Company, in integrating the design of his adjacent building, Park Place Office Building into her design for the park. She also worked in collaboration with an architect, landscape architect, engineers, and real estate developers on the work.[15] For Rock Rings, Holt searched far and wide to find the right masons to work on the piece and also had local stone called schist, which was 250-million-years old, quarried by hand for the work.[12] Despite all of the collaboration, Holt noted that she was always present for the construction of her artworks.[12] in June 2012, she completed Avignon Locators, her first site-specific work made in France on the basis of the Missoula Ranch Locators: Vision Encompassed (1972). This work [16] involved a team of academics, teachers and students, an astrophysist, a surveyor, a metalworker and an architect.[17]

Analysis of major works

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Sun Tunnels

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A small crowd views the summer solstice sunset on June 20th, 2021 at the Sun Tunnels.
Sun Tunnels in June 2015.

Sun Tunnels is located in the Great Basin Desert outside of the ghost town of Lucin, Utah, at 41°18′13″N 113°51′50″W / 41.303501°N 113.863831°W / 41.303501; -113.863831.[18] The work is a product of Holt's interest in the great variation of intensity of the sun in the desert compared to the sun in the city.[12] Holt searched for and found a site which was remote and empty.

"It is a very desolate area, but it is totally accessible, and it can be easily visited, making Sun Tunnels more accessible really than art in museums ... A work like Sun Tunnels is always accessible ... Eventually, as many people will see Sun Tunnels as would see many works in a city - in a museum anyway."[12]

The work consists of four large scale concrete tunnels (18 feet or 5.5 metres long and 9 feet or 2.7 metres in diameter), which are arranged in an “X” configuration to total a length of 86 feet (26 m). Each tunnel is aligned with, variously, the sunrise or sunset, of the summer or winter solstice. Someone visiting the site would see the tunnels immediately with their contrast to the fairly undifferentiated desert landscape. Approaching the work, which can be seen up to 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away, the viewer's perception of space is questioned as the tunnels change views as a product of their landscape.[19]

The tunnels not only provide a much-needed shelter from the sweltering desert sun, but once inside the effect of the play of light within the tunnels can be seen. The top of each tunnel has small holes, forming on each, the constellations of Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn, respectively.[12] The diameters of the holes differ in relation to the magnitude of the stars represented.[12] These holes cast spots of daylight in the dark interiors of the tunnels, which appear almost like stars. Holt said of the tunnels, "It’s an inversion of the sky/ground relationship-bringing the sky down to the earth."[12] This is a common theme in Holt's work. She sometimes created this relationship with reflecting pools and shadow patterns marked on the ground, like in her work Star Crossed.[12]

Dia Art Foundation acquired the work in March 2018.[20][1] It is the first land art installation by a woman in Dia's collection.[21] It is now considered one of Dia's 12 locations and sites they manage.

Dark Star Park

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Dark Star Park was commissioned by Arlington County, Virginia, in 1979, in conjunction with an urban-renewal project.[13] Construction of the work began in 1984. Holt worked with an architect, landscape architect, engineers and real estate developers on the project.[13] The artwork is at once a park and a sculpture. Built on 2⁄3 acre (29,000 sq ft; 2,700 m2) of land where a run-down, old gas station and warehouse once stood, Holt transformed the space.[13] The park consists of five spheres, two pools, four steel poles, a stairway, a large tunnel for passage, a smaller tunnel for viewing only and plantings of crown vetch, winter creeper, willow oak, and earth and grass.[22]

The forms stand in stark contrast to the busy and highly developed commercial area that surrounds the space. There are places to walk and sit within the park, giving a passersby a chance to escape from the urban environment. Dark Star Park is more socially interactive than Holt's other works. Holt paid attention to how people both inside and outside the park would see the spheres. The work alters the viewer's perception by using curvilinear forms, such as the walkways that mimic the curving roads surrounding the site. Walking in the park or driving by it, viewers may mistake spheres of different sizes to actually be the same size or one sphere may eclipse another. The tunneled passages into the park frame certain sculptural elements, as do the reflections in the pools. However, Holt made sure not to alienate the park entirely from its surroundings. The spheres are made of gunite (a sprayable mixture of cement and sand), asphalt, precast concrete tunnels, steel poles and stone masonry.[13] These materials relate the park to the buildings located near the artwork.

The work explores the concept of time and our relationship to the universe. When approaching one of the spheres, a visitor to the park might be reminded of the lunar surface[22] or when glancing at the quiet pools of water around the spheres, may relate them to craters.[13] This is no coincidence. Holt held a fascination with solar eclipses, as well as in the shadows cast by the sun on the surface of the earth[22] and the name of the park is a reference to the astronomical appearance of the large spheres that are its most distinct features. In speaking about the name Holt said, "It’s called Dark Star Park because in my imagination these spheres are like stars that have fallen to the ground-they no longer shine-so I think of the park/artwork in a somewhat celestial way."[12] By engaging the viewer with these spheres and the other elements surrounding them in the park, Holt brought the vast scale of nature and the cosmos back to human scale. Time is also a major part of this work. Once a year on August 1 at 9:32 a.m., the shadows cast by two of the spheres and their four adjacent poles align with permanent asphalt shadow patterns outlined on the ground.[13] This date was selected by the artist to commemorate the day in 1860 when William Ross bought the land that today is Rosslyn, Virginia, where the park is situated.[13]

Holt took on the challenging task of playing many roles in the park's creation, becoming at once an artist, landscape designer and committee member for approving plans for a nearby building. To take on all three roles possibly had never been done before by an artist, thus the park and its designer remain important to the history of art.

"I was the landscape designer as well as the sculptor, so the whole park became a work of art. And I was on the committee to approve the architectural design of the building adjacent to the park. I don’t think either of these situations ever happened before for an artist, so that was unusual, and it broke new ground for public art."[12]

The work was surveyed in June 1995. At that time “treatment was needed.”.[15] Thus, seven years later, when the park was finally restored in 2002 it was long overdue.

Polar Circle and Star-Crossed

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The reflecting pool and observation tunnel of Star-Crossed. The tunnel for walking runs horizontally through the mound from this vantage.

In 1979, Nancy Holt was commissioned to do two works on the grounds of Miami University in Ohio, the temporary work Polar Circle and the permanent sculptureStar-Crossed.

Solar Web

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Holt's Solar Web (1984–89) was one of three projects chosen by the Arts Commission of Santa Monica, California, after receiving proposals from 29 artists in 1984. The works were to form a new Natural Elements Sculpture Park scattered along the southern half of Santa Monica's beach. Called Solar Web, the work would have stood up to 16 feet tall and been 72 feet long. It was a web-like network of black steel pipes pointed toward the ocean, designed to align with the sun and the planets in such a way that it marked the summer and winter solstices.[23] The project was later abandoned after protests from oceanfront homeowners who complain the artwork will ruin their scenic views.[24]

Flow Ace Heating

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A functioning hot water system, Holt's Flow Ace Heating (1985) begins with a pipe that cuts through a gallery wall near the ceiling and grows into a complex configuration of linear form, punctuated by radiators, valve wheels, gauges and other instruments. The pipes (all warm to the touch) wrap around walls and extend into their rooms' centers where they blossom into large rectangles and loops.[25]

Sky Mound

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Located in Northern New Jersey, Sky Mound sits where a 57-acre (2,500,000 sq ft; 230,000 m2), 100-foot-high (30 m) landfill once stood.[26] The state's Hackensack Meadowland Development Commission (HMDC) asked Holt to reclaim the site in an effort to provide an environmentally safe spot for plant and animal life to reside and for humans to enjoy.[27]

Still unfinished in April 2008, the landfill is to be turned into an earth sculpture and public park. The landfill has been covered with grass. Ten mounds stand upon the site, as well as steel poles, plants, and a pond, designed for the approximately 250 species of migratory birds that visit the area seasonally.[27] There will eventually be wind indicators and gravel paths. On several astronomically significant dates each year, the work will provide its viewer with unique views of the sun, moon and several stars.

In addition, a series of arcing pipes will go down into the landfill, recovering methane from the 10 million tons of garbage below.[26] This will provide an alternative source of energy for those in the community.

The yet to be completed Sky Mound’s location makes it visible and accessible to many people. Holt believed the work would increase awareness of the complex problem of how we dispose of our waste and trash.[26] The unfinished work also raises questions about the sun, as every ecosystem depends on the sun and its energy for survival.[28] In 1991, funding on Sky Mound was stopped to perform a technological study at the site; currently construction remains postponed.[29]

Films

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Holt made a number of films and videos since the late 1960s, including Mono Lake (1968), East Coast, West Coast (1969), Swamp (1971) (in collaboration with Robert Smithson[30]) and Breaking ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, a video "guided by Smithson's film notes and drawings"[31] and completed forty years on. Points of View: Clocktower (1974) features conversations between Lucy Lippard and Richard Serra, Liza Bear and Klaus Kertess, Carl Andre and Ruth Kligman and Bruce Brice and Tina Girouard.[32] In 1978, she produced a 16mm color film documenting the seminal work Sun Tunnels.

Underscan (1974) - Videotape

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Holt made Underscan in 1974 using still images of her aunt Ethel's home in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and an underscanning device to tell a story of aging and the passage of time.[33] The images are manipulated through a process of videotaping, and then re-videotaping the monitor of the underscanning monitor screen, which distorts, elongates, and compresses the images.[34] The video begins by zooming in on a blank monitor until the images appear to encompass the entirety of the screen.[33] A voice-over of Holt reading letters received from her aunt between 1962 and 1972 accompanies the images.[33] Along with the images, the letters themselves have been edited by Holt to include and exclude pieces of information which contribute to a theme of deterioration present in the video and the voice-over.[35] The letters from Ethel Holt-Tate to her niece discuss Ethel's experience of maintaining her home, her health over the years, and the health of her roommates.[36] The entirety of the voice-over is completed with Holt reading in a deadpan tone and metronome rhythm, which normalizes life and death as equivalent human experiences.[36] The tone of the voice-over, combined with the mechanical scrolling of the underscanning monitor, distances the viewer and is in high contrast with the intimate content of the letters.[36] Underscan challenges the idea that elderly women need to be cared for or are unproductive-- the letters from Ethel detail how she is productive in her care for her home, both inside and out and is responsible for her own health.[36] Underscan draws attention to the experiences of aging, the fragility of memory, and the connections we build by caring for each other.[37] Importantly, Holt’s narration partitions the viewer’s relationship with her aunt Ethel. Presumably, upon receiving the letters, Holt’s internal dialogue is mediated through Ethel’s voice, through their personal interactions. On the other hand, the viewer cannot and would not recognize the voice of aunt Ethel— that relationship is kept private within Holt’s family. Underscan invites viewers into a series of intimate conversations, yet inherently keeps full intimacy at bay. In this way, Underscan’s dual nature lends it to quick, familiar connection—where viewer’s relate to the experience of aging—and disjunction, grasping at a relationship one can never be privy to.

Selected artworks

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Catch Basin in Toronto, Ontario
Rock Rings in Bellingham, Washington.

Exhibitions

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The first retrospective of her work, “Nancy Holt: Sightlines,” opened in 2010 at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University and traveled to several other venues in the United States and Europe.[4]

Some of her work was included in the Light and Language exhibition at Lisemore Castle Arts, Ireland in 2021.[38] In 2022 the major survey Nancy Holt / Inside Outside launched at Bildmuseet, Umea University, Sweden, traveling to MACBA, Spain in 2023 with two accompanying publications in English and Spanish.

Selected solo exhibitions

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  • 1972 Art Gallery, University of Montana, Missoula Montana
  • 1972 Art Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston
  • 1977 "Young American Filmmakers’ Series," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
  • 1979 Rock Rings at Western Washington University
  • 1985 Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
  • 1989 Montpellier Cultural Arts Center, Laurel, Maryland
  • 1993 John Weber Gallery, New York, New York
  • 2010-13 "Nancy Holt: Sightlines" (international traveling exhibition), Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery, New York, New York; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, Illinois; Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (e-press release); Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI), Santa Fe, New Mexico; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah
  • 2012 "Nancy Holt: Photoworks," Haunch of Venison, London, United Kingdom
  • 2013 "Nancy Holt: Land Art," Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
  • 2013 "Nancy Holt & Robert Smithson: England and Wales 1969," John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
  • 2013 "Nancy Holt – Selected Photo and Film Works," Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
  • 2023 "Nancy Holt / Inside Outside", MACBA, Barcelona, Spain.[39]
  • 2024 Tate Liverpool

Selected group exhibitions

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Legacy

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In 2014, the Holt/Smithson Foundation[40] was founded[1] to continue the creative and investigative spirit of the artists Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, who, over their careers, developed innovative methods of exploring our relationship with the planet, and expanded the limits of artistic practice. Through public service, the Foundation engages in programs that increase awareness of both artists’ creative legacies, continuing the transformation they brought to the world of art and ideas.

Since 2021, Holt's estate has been represented by Sprüth Magers and Parafin.[41]

References

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Further reading

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Nancy Holt

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Nancy Holt (April 5, 1938 – February 8, 2014) was an American sculptor, photographer, and video artist recognized for her contributions to the and Earthworks movements through large-scale, site-specific installations that harness natural elements like sunlight, shadows, and celestial alignments to explore perception, time, and environmental interaction. Holt's works, often constructed in remote landscapes, challenged conventional by integrating with its physical and temporal context, as exemplified by her iconic Sun Tunnels (1973–1976), four massive concrete cylinders arranged in the of to capture and frame the sun's positions during solstices and equinoxes, thereby marking astronomical events and altering viewers' experience of diurnal cycles. A graduate of with a biology degree, she expanded artistic media to include film and public commissions, such as Dark Star Park (1979–1984) in Arlington, , which uses spherical shadows to evoke geological time scales, and received the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013 for her enduring influence on site-specific .

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Formative Influences

Nancy Holt was born on April 5, 1938, in , to Ernest Milton Holt, a chemical engineer employed by , and E. Louise Holt, a homemaker. Her parents were both natives, with her father originating from New Bedford and her mother from Worcester, instilling in the family a strong regional identity despite later relocations. As an in a with limited social connections, Holt experienced relative isolation from extended relatives and community ties. Around age three, the family relocated to following her father's job transfer, settling in suburban areas such as Bloomfield and Clifton near the . They lived in rented homes, including a "phony Tudor house" on a typical suburban street, reflecting a transient existence amid expectations of a temporary stay. Holt later described feeling "oddly displaced" in this environment, maintaining a psychological allegiance to rather than embracing New Jersey's landscape. Her mother's emotional and health challenges further distanced familial role models, while the family's proximity to offered no early cultural immersion, such as visits, and Holt received minimal training or encouragement. These circumstances fostered Holt's independent of surroundings, including New Jersey's industrial features like oil refineries and distant flames, which sparked curiosity about engineered and natural phenomena. Her father's scientific profession influenced an early fascination with , particularly the visual intricacies of , animals, and such as , which honed her perceptual acuity toward systems structuring experience. As an only child attuned to "overlooked" details in , these elements prefigured her artistic emphasis on framing , spatial awareness, and the interplay of human with environmental .

Formal Education and Initial Artistic Training

Nancy Holt attended in , from 1956 to 1960, where she majored in . She graduated with a degree in in 1960. During her undergraduate studies, Holt developed an interest in both science and art, with her biology coursework providing insights into natural systems that later influenced her artistic explorations of and environment. However, she received no formal training in art at Tufts or elsewhere during this period, reflecting a self-directed approach to her creative development rather than structured institutional instruction. Following her graduation, Holt relocated to , where she began pursuing artistic endeavors independently, without enrollment in art academies or programs. Her initial artistic training thus emerged through personal experimentation and immersion in the city's circles, drawing on her scientific background to inform early works involving , . This lack of conventional art education aligned with the era's shift toward conceptual and site-specific practices, enabling Holt to bypass traditional studio techniques in favor of interdisciplinary methods.

Career Beginnings and Personal Relationships

Entry into New York Art Scene

Nancy Holt relocated to in late 1960 following her graduation from with a biology degree. There, she reconnected with , a childhood acquaintance from , and immersed herself in the burgeoning circles amid the rise of and . Initially lacking formal art training, Holt began experimenting with and , drawing on linguistic structures to explore perception and site-specificity, which aligned her with contemporaries like and . Her entry into the scene was facilitated by personal networks, including collaborations and discussions with artists such as , , and , as well as her evolving partnership with Smithson, whose earthworks and writings influenced the group's shift toward environmental interventions. By the late 1960s, Holt's work gained visibility through group exhibitions that showcased experimental formats. Her debut presentation occurred in "Language III" at Dwan Gallery in 1969, featuring her concrete poems alongside other language-based pieces, marking her integration into New York's institutional frameworks for . This exposure preceded her first solo exhibition in 1972 at 10 , where she presented early installations probing light and spatial perception, solidifying her presence amid the transition from gallery-based to site-responsive . These milestones reflected not only her technical evolution but also the scene's receptivity to interdisciplinary practices, though her contributions were often overshadowed by male peers in contemporaneous accounts from galleries like Dwan, which prioritized earth art pioneers.

Marriage to Robert Smithson and Mutual Influences

Nancy Holt met artist in in 1960, shortly after her move there from . The couple married on June 8, 1963, and remained together until Smithson's death in a plane crash on July 20, 1973, while surveying sites for his planned Amarillo Ramp earthwork in . Their was marked by shared explorations of industrial and natural landscapes, including early trips to quarries and gravel pits in the 1960s, which informed both artists' emerging interests in site-specific interventions and . Holt and Smithson collaborated on several projects that blurred the lines between their individual practices, particularly in and conceptual works. In 1967, they produced the Stone Ruin Tour, a guided of decayed industrial sites in , emphasizing themes of time, decay, and perceptual shifts. Their 1968 video East Coast, West Coast featured a conversational format mimicking talk shows, probing geographic and cultural perceptions. In 1969, a joint trip to exposed them to ancient ruins, landscaped gardens, and industrial remnants, which resonated with their mutual focus on non-site art—works that displaced or documented absent landscapes—and influenced subsequent earthworks like Smithson's (1970). The mutual influences were reciprocal and profound, with Smithson's theoretical writings on , mapping, and site dialectics shaping Holt's shift toward large-scale outdoor sculptures that engaged celestial and terrestrial alignments, as seen in her Sun Tunnels (1973–1976). Conversely, Holt's background in and emphasis on perceptual systems—evident in her early photographic series like Locators (1967–1968)—encouraged Smithson's integration of scientific into his conceptual frameworks, deepening his exploration of environmental processes in works like Asphalt Rundown (1969). Following Smithson's death, Holt curated and edited his writings for publication in The Writings of Robert Smithson (1979), ensuring the dissemination of ideas that had cross-pollinated their oeuvres, while managing his estate and advancing legacies through the establishment of the Holt/Smithson Foundation in 2014.

Artistic Philosophy and Techniques

Core Concepts: Perception, Space, and Temporality


Nancy Holt's oeuvre prioritized the viewer's direct sensory interaction with environmental phenomena, framing as a tangible, bodily process intertwined with spatial and temporal awareness. In her 1993 oral history interview, Holt described her art as "physical, and deals with , and with , and ," distinguishing it from conceptual by emphasizing sight and materials. She sought to heighten perceptual acuity through mechanisms like peepholes and tubes, which isolated visual fields to achieve what she called the "concretisation of ," compelling viewers to "really focus, really perceive intensely the thing seen." Holt's engagement with space involved reorienting viewers' via site-specific interventions that exposed relational dynamics between human scale, , and . Her "seeing devices," such as the Locators series initiated in 1971, directed attention to overlooked details in urban or natural settings, transforming irregular forms into focused circles and underscoring how structures environmental encounters. By altering sightlines and incorporating light's variability—"Light changes the way we see and understand a "—these works disrupted habitual spatial , revealing the constructed of orientation. Temporality in Holt's practice manifested through alignments with celestial and diurnal cycles, as well as durational media like and video, which captured or enacted time's progression. She explicitly addressed this , stating, "Time is a I work with, making the viewer aware of its passage," often by synchronizing sculptures with solstices or employing extended viewing durations to foster temporal consciousness. Early photographic series, such as Western Graveyards from 1968, documented time-bound decay in static forms, while later earthworks integrated astronomical precision to link human with cosmic rhythms, examining "the human of time and space, earth and sky."

Materials, Site-Specificity, and Engineering Integration

Nancy Holt frequently employed industrial materials such as and in her sculptures to create durable, site-integrated forms that interacted with environments. These materials, including large pipes and culverts, allowed her works to withstand harsh outdoor conditions while emphasizing structural permanence and minimal intervention in the landscape. In her System Works series, Holt utilized standard industrial components to construct site-responsive sculptures that highlighted infrastructural elements and perceptual systems. Holt's practice was deeply rooted in site-specificity, where each sculpture evolved directly from the topography, climate, and celestial alignments of its location. She selected remote or particular sites, such as purchasing 40 acres in Utah's specifically for Sun Tunnels (1973–1976), to ensure the work's alignment with solar events like solstices and equinoxes. This approach extended to urban interventions, adapting to built environments while framing views of , , and horizon to alter human perception of space and time. Engineering integration was essential to Holt's large-scale projects, involving collaborations with engineers, astronomers, and manufacturers to achieve precise astronomical orientations and structural stability. For Sun Tunnels, she worked with concrete pipe producers and drillers to fabricate and position four 18-foot-diameter tubes, each drilled with holes corresponding to constellations Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn, enabling viewers to track celestial bodies through engineered sightlines. Holt studied physics to inform these designs, ensuring that engineering precision amplified environmental phenomena rather than dominating the site. This methodical process underscored her commitment to systems that connected human observation with cosmic scales.

Major Sculptural and Land Art Works

Sun Tunnels (1973–1976)

Sun Tunnels consists of four large concrete cylinders, each 18 feet long and 9 feet in diameter, arranged in an X formation across the desert floor in Utah's Great Basin Desert. The work spans overall dimensions of approximately 9 feet 3 inches in height by 68 feet 6 inches by 53 feet, constructed from concrete, steel, and earth. Each cylinder weighs 22 tons and was positioned on 40 acres of land purchased by Holt specifically for the project. The tunnels are precisely aligned east-west and north-south to frame the rising and setting sun during the summer and winter solstices, marking the extremes of the sun's path on the horizon. Smaller holes pierced into the concrete surfaces correspond to the stars of four constellations—Draco, , , and —allowing light patterns to project inside the tunnels at night and emphasizing . Construction occurred between 1973 and 1976, involving collaboration with engineers and astronomers to achieve the alignments and structural integrity. Holt intended the piece to heighten awareness of solar and stellar phenomena within the vast, isolated , transforming the viewer's of time, scale, and environmental immersion. By directing attention through the tunnels, the work integrates human observation with natural cycles, countering urban disconnection from cosmic events. Dia Art Foundation acquired Sun Tunnels in 2018, assuming stewardship to preserve its site-specific integrity.

Dark Star Park (1979–1984) and Urban Interventions

Dark Star Park, completed in 1984, is a site-specific public artwork encompassing a two-thirds-acre urban park in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Commissioned by Arlington County in 1979 amid an urban renewal initiative, Holt expanded the initial sculpture brief to redesign the entire blighted site—previously occupied by a gas station and warehouse remnants—into an integrated sculptural landscape. The project, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, marked Arlington's inaugural major public art commission. The installation features gunite concrete spheres of varying diameters interspersed across the terrain, framed by viewing tunnels, reflected in shallow pools, and carved into stone elements, alongside steel poles, stone masonry, asphalt paving, gravel, earth, grass, plants, and willow oaks. A defining perceptual element occurs annually on August 1 at approximately 9:32 a.m., when sunlight casts shadows from the spheres and poles precisely onto embedded circular asphalt forms in the southern , commemorating the site's land acquisition in 1860 and evoking cosmic scale within the urban grid. Holt employed a helioscope to model these alignments, underscoring her focus on , , and viewer engagement with environmental systems. The work reclaims industrial detritus, transforming it into a meditative space that quotes astronomical phenomena amid high-rise development. Holt's urban interventions in this period extended to her Systems Works series (circa 1981–1992), which integrated sculpture with concealed infrastructural functions in built environments, revealing typically hidden utilities like drainage and ventilation. Catch Basin (1982), sited in Toronto's , exemplifies this approach: a functional land drainage system disguised as , comprising four 15-foot posts supporting hanging rings that mirror an underground terra-cotta and basin (overall dimensions 15 × 90 × 80 feet), channeling while exposing systemic processes. Holt described Catch Basin as emerging from her interest in "exposing and utilizing functional systems, which are usually hidden beneath the earth's surface," thereby merging aesthetic form with ecological utility in urban contexts. These interventions contrasted her earlier rural by adapting site-specificity to mutable city infrastructures, prioritizing perceptual awareness of overlooked mechanics over monumental permanence.

Other Site-Specific Projects: Polar Circle, Star-Crossed, and Sky Mound

In 1979, Nancy Holt received a commission from in , to create two site-specific earthworks: and . Polar Circle, intended as the primary sculpture for the campus, was completed around 1980 but subsequently destroyed, with limited documentation surviving about its form or precise configuration. Star-Crossed (1979–1981), constructed from earth, concrete, steel, water, and grass, features a 14-foot-high earthen pierced by two intersecting concrete tunnels aligned north-south and east-west, adjacent to a . The work draws on the site's unique geographical property, where astronomical and magnetic north converged during the 1780s U.S. Public Land Survey initiation in , allowing Holt to embed celestial observation into the . Holt described the as "bringing the down to earth," enabling viewers to climb the and peer through the tunnels to frame the horizon and , emphasizing perceptual shifts between earthly and cosmic scales. Located east of the university's , it remains a permanent installation maintained by the institution. Sky Mound (1984–c. 2008), a partially realized project on a 57-acre, 100-foot-high closed landfill in the Hackensack Meadowlands of northern , aimed to transform waste into an ecological artwork. Commissioned by the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, Holt's design incorporated earth mounds, walking paths, ponds for wildlife, a solar-heated amphitheater, and a gas collection system to power visible flares atop the mound, symbolizing the site's industrial residue while promoting environmental restoration. Though construction began in the late with some earthworks and a gunite sphere moat representing the , the project stalled due to funding and regulatory issues, leaving it largely unrealized; Holt's extensive drawings preserve the visionary scope, highlighting tensions between art, ecology, and urban .

Film, Video, and Multimedia Productions

Experimental Films and Videotapes

Nancy Holt produced experimental films and videotapes from the late through the , employing these media to investigate , , and the subjective experience of space, often extending the observational strategies of her sculptural works. Early efforts frequently involved collaboration with her husband , such as East Coast/West Coast (1969, 23 minutes, black-and-white, sound), which juxtaposes footage of New York City's urban density against expansive western terrains to highlight contrasts in human-altered and natural environments. Similarly, Swamp (1971, 6 minutes, with Smithson) captures the tactile and visual qualities of a marshland through slow pans and close-ups, emphasizing immersion in unaltered sites. Holt's independent films included Utah Sequences (1970, 9 minutes, color), a series of desert vignettes filmed during travels that prefigure her later land art by framing vast, empty horizons to evoke temporal and spatial disorientation. Missoula Ranch Locators: The Great Basin Segment (1972, 9 minutes) continues this locational focus, using a ranch in Montana as a vantage for surveying expansive basins, akin to her "locator" sculptures that orient viewers toward celestial or terrestrial markers. By the mid-1970s, Holt shifted toward video's real-time capabilities, as in Underscan (1974, 9 minutes, black-and-white, sound), where she videotaped photographs of her aunt's Massachusetts home and applied an "underscanning" technique—compressing the image edges electronically—to distort domestic scenes, thereby exploring themes of aging, memory compression, and familial detachment based on her aunt's letters. Video installations like Points of View: Clocktower (1974) featured four monitors displaying live or recorded views from the circular windows of New York's Clocktower Gallery, each paired with overlaid dialogues that dissect framing as a perceptual tool, mirroring the gallery's architecture to question objective seeing. In Boomerang (1974, with ), broadcast live on a Texas TV station, Holt speaks into headphones receiving her words delayed by one second, creating a feedback loop of fragmented speech that she described as transforming language into object-like entities, disrupting linear thought and self-identity while demonstrating video's potential for immediate, non-gallery distribution. Pine Barrens (1975, 31 minutes, color, 16mm film, sound) immerses viewers in New Jersey's region through tracking shots, pivots, and interviews with locals, evoking the area's barren wilderness, cranberry bogs, and inhabitants' relationship to the land as a study in regional and environmental . Later productions, such as Sun Tunnels (1978, 26 minutes, 31 seconds, color, sound, digitized 16mm), document the construction of her earthwork, interweaving process footage with astronomical alignments to underscore the interplay of human intervention, natural cycles, and durational viewing. These works collectively prioritize film's documentary precision and video's feedback mechanisms to challenge passive observation, aligning with Holt's broader emphasis on site-responsive art that activates environmental awareness without narrative imposition.

Thematic Overlaps with Sculpture

Nancy Holt's films and videos frequently intersected with her sculptural practice through shared explorations of , spatial orientation, and the passage of time within specific environments. In works like the 26-minute Sun Tunnels (1978), Holt documented the construction and experiential dynamics of her contemporaneous earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973–1976) in Utah's , capturing the sculpture's manipulation of sunlight and diurnal cycles to alter viewer awareness of landscape and sky. This cinematic approach mirrored the physical apertures of the concrete tunnels, which frame solar events and celestial markers, thereby extending sculptural framing into temporal documentation. Early video experiments, such as Going Around in Circles (1973), employed subjective point-of-view shots to disorient spatial perception, paralleling how Holt's site-specific sculptures redirected environmental encounters through engineered viewpoints. Similarly, Point of View: A Video Essay (1972) investigated framing and voyeuristic observation, themes that recurred in installations like Dark Star Park (1979–1984), where geometric forms and reflective pools mediated urban sightlines and light refraction. These pieces thus functioned as perceptual tools, akin to her , challenging passive observation by integrating human scale with cosmic and terrestrial rhythms. Holt's integration of with emphasized site-specificity and material interplay, as seen in her use of lenses to simulate the restrictive views imposed by sculptural conduits, fostering a heightened of , duration, and . This overlap underscored her broader artistic inquiry into how mediated vision—whether through or concrete—reconfigures the viewer's relationship to immutable natural phenomena, bridging ephemeral recording with enduring environmental interventions.

Exhibitions and Professional Recognition

Solo Exhibitions

Nancy Holt's first solo exhibition took place in 1972 at 10 , New York, marking her debut presentation of sculptural Locators and related installations focused on and orientation. Subsequent early solo shows included presentations at university galleries, such as the Art Gallery at the in Missoula and the Art Center at the in Kingston, both in 1972, emphasizing her emerging site-responsive works. In 1982, Holt exhibited Electrical System, a room-sized installation of pipes evoking urban infrastructure, at John Weber Gallery in New York, highlighting her integration of engineering elements into sculpture. Her practice continued with solo presentations at institutions like the Fine Art Center at the . Posthumous retrospectives have significantly expanded recognition of Holt's oeuvre. Nancy Holt: Sightlines (2010–2012), originating at Columbia University's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery in New York, surveyed four decades of her interdisciplinary output, including , films, photographs, and projects. Other key posthumous solos include installations at Dia:Chelsea, New York (2018–2019), focusing on site-specific elements. Recent exhibitions underscore ongoing reappraisals:
  • Mirrors of Light (2021–2022), , , featuring the 1974 installation Mirrors of Light I.
  • Locating Perception (2022–2023), , , with photographic series, Locator sculptures, and audio works.
  • Inside Outside (2022–2023), Bildmuseet, , ; and (2023–2024), MACBA, , surveying works from 1967 to 1992.
  • Points of View (2020), Parafin, , exploring her early language-based pieces.
  • Circles of Light (2024), Gropius Bau, , spanning , , , and light experiments across four decades.
  • Power Systems (2025), , , presenting interactive sculptural systems investigating energy and infrastructure.
  • Echoes & Evolutions: Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (September 5–October 25, 2025), Sprüth Magers, New York, including drawings, collages, photographs, and Studio Locator sculptures related to her iconic land work.
A comprehensive chronology of solo exhibitions is documented in the artist's CV maintained by the Holt/Smithson Foundation.

Group Exhibitions and Institutional Shows

Holt's early involvement in group exhibitions began with Language III at Dwan Gallery in New York in 1969, marking her initial public presentation alongside conceptual and language-based works by contemporaries. Her pieces appeared in institutional surveys of experimental media, such as Time Frame at P.S.1 Center (now ) in 1977, which explored perceptual limits through video and installation by artists including Holt. In the land art context, Holt was prominently featured in Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, , from May 27 to September 3, 2012, with subsequent presentation at in from October 11, 2012, to January 20, 2013; the show highlighted her site-specific interventions and photographic documentation from the and alongside works by over 100 artists. Later institutional inclusions encompassed Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image at the in , from March 16, 2012, to April 14, 2013, focusing on her film and video explorations of and . More recent group shows include Our Present at Museum für Gegenwartskunst , , from February 14 to August 16, 2020, and Groundswell: Women of at Nasher Sculpture Center in from September 23, 2023, to January 7, 2024, which emphasized female contributions to earthworks through her photographs and models. Upcoming participation features All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today at , , from November 15, 2025, to January 3, 2026, surveying light-based practices.

Awards and Public Commissions

Nancy Holt received numerous awards and fellowships recognizing her contributions to , , and site-specific installations. In 2013, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center in New York, honoring her pioneering work in environmental and public . In 2012, the French Government bestowed upon her the Chevalier of the Ordre des et des Lettres for her artistic achievements. She also received the Woodson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in Santa Fe in 2011. Additionally, in 1995, Holt was granted an Honorary Doctorate by the in Tampa. Holt's funding support included five Fellowships from the , awarded in 1975, 1978, 1983, 1985, and 1988; two New York Creative Artist Fellowships in 1975 and 1978; and a in 1978. These grants enabled key projects integrating observation of natural phenomena with constructed environments. Among her public commissions, Holt created Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977–1984) for , featuring circular stone arrangements aligned with celestial events. She designed 30 Below (1979) for the in , a subterranean viewing structure oriented toward winter sun paths. Other commissions include Astral Grating (1986) for the system, incorporating perforated metal grates that frame sky views for commuters; Catch Basin (1982) in Toronto's , a sculptural water feature reflecting urban surroundings; and Sole Source (1983), commissioned by the Independent Artists Group of for a temporary . These works extended her practice into civic spaces, emphasizing perceptual engagement with light, water, and geometry.

Criticisms, Environmental Considerations, and Debates

Artistic and Aesthetic Critiques

Nancy Holt's , exemplified by Sun Tunnels (1973–1976), employs minimalist concrete forms to frame celestial alignments and , prompting perceptual engagement with vast landscapes and cosmic scales. This aesthetic strategy highlights human vulnerability amid overwhelming environments, using human-scaled tunnels to mediate the desert's dominance and connect subjective vision to external systems. Critics have praised the work's innovative framing devices for evoking timelessness and inner-outer spatial links, though its austerity relies heavily on specific lighting and seasonal conditions for effect. Aesthetic evaluations often note the installation's modesty and lack of primordial symbolism, contrasting with more iconic land art like Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, leading some observers to dismiss it as visually insubstantial or "nothing" in isolation from its perceptual intent. The work's fragility to and —causing mirage-like distortions—can undermine consistent aesthetic delivery, emphasizing site dependency over portable form. Such critiques underscore a tension between conceptual functionality and traditional expectations of sculptural permanence and grandeur. Holt's aesthetic has been interpreted through lenses of over explicit , with simple geometries and light manipulations evoking poetic explorations of time and space rather than overt political critique. Gender biases in discourse further shaped reception, as critics frequently overlooked her formal contributions—such as observational systems in works like Electrical System ()—in favor of male-dominated narratives, limiting broader aesthetic appraisal. Despite this, her emphasis on and hidden environmental interactions has garnered recognition for advancing site-responsive beyond gallery confines.

Environmental and Economic Impacts of Land Art

Land art earthworks, such as Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (1973–1976) in Utah's , involve construction processes that temporarily disrupt local soils through excavation, use, and material transport, potentially affecting sparse desert microbiomes and crusts essential for . These impacts are mitigated in arid environments with low vegetation and , where recovery occurs swiftly absent ongoing activity, contrasting with denser ecosystems. Critics argue that such interventions, even in barren sites, impose irreversible alterations on untouched terrains, framing as prioritizing human aesthetics over ecological integrity. Over time, earthworks endure natural , including wind-driven and shifts, which can degrade forms but integrate them into landscapes without further ecological cost. For Sun Tunnels, comprising four 18-foot concrete cylinders aligned to celestial events, the locale minimizes loss, as the region's extreme supports resilient, low-density and unaffected by the static installation. No documented cases link Holt's project to broader acceleration, though general earthmoving risks drawdown if scaled up. Economically, land art demands high upfront expenditures for engineering, transport, and land acquisition—Holt purchased 40 acres for Sun Tunnels in 1974, with realization spanning 1973–1976 reliant on foundation support amid recession constraints on public funding. Site-bound works evade , limiting resale and artist revenue compared to portable media, as evidenced by land artists' subdued markets. Conversely, these sites foster niche tourism; Utah's , including analogs like Spiral Jetty, bolsters a $12 billion annual visitor sector by drawing cultural pilgrims to remote zones, generating indirect jobs and spending despite access challenges.

Legacy and Posthumous Developments

Influence on Contemporary Art

Nancy Holt's pioneering site-specific installations, which emphasized perceptual engagement with natural light, celestial phenomena, and landscape, have exerted a lasting impact on contemporary land art and environmental sculpture. Her work Sun Tunnels (1973–76), consisting of four large concrete tubes aligned with solstices and constellations in Utah's Great Basin Desert, exemplifies her focus on framing environmental cycles, influencing artists who explore human perception within vast, unaltered terrains. This approach anticipated contemporary practices that integrate astronomy, geology, and viewer immersion, as seen in installations addressing climate and cosmic scales. Holt's early recognition of intersections between art and ecological awareness—predating similar efforts by other land artists—has informed modern eco-artists prioritizing sustainability and site responsiveness over monumental disruption. For instance, her subtle interventions in the landscape, avoiding the resource-intensive earth-moving of peers like Michael Heizer, resonated with later generations confronting environmental critiques of 1970s land art. Contemporary sculptor Erin Shirreff, whose works similarly manipulate light and form to evoke temporal shifts, draws parallels to Holt's sculptural phenomenology in exhibitions juxtaposing their practices. By challenging male-dominated narratives in , Holt's independent oeuvre—often overshadowed by her husband Robert Smithson's fame—paved the way for female-led environmental projects, such as Maya Lin's earth-integrated memorials that blend architecture with natural contours. Exhibitions like "Light and Language" at (2022) featured homages by artists including Matthew Day Jackson, who reinterpreted Holt's motifs of observation and ephemerality, underscoring her role in evolving conceptual toward and performative engagements. The Holt/Smithson Foundation's initiatives, including collaborations with living artists, perpetuate this legacy by commissioning works that extend her emphasis on perceptual and ecological dialogues.

Recent Exhibitions and Reappraisals (2020–2025)

Nancy Holt's works have experienced a surge in exhibitions from 2021 onward, driven by the Holt/Smithson Foundation's efforts to highlight her contributions to perception-based and systems-oriented art. A notable early example was "Nancy Holt: Mirrors of Light" at Sprüth Magers in Berlin from November 26, 2021, to January 27, 2022, featuring her 1974 installation Mirrors of Light I, which uses mirrored panels to frame and reflect light as both medium and subject. Subsequent surveys expanded this focus, such as "Nancy Holt / Inside Outside" at Bildmuseet in , , from June 18, 2022, to January 29, 2023, presenting works from 1967 to 1992 that probe boundaries between interior and exterior spaces through , , and film. In , "Nancy Holt: Locating Perception" at Sprüth Magers from October 28, 2022, to January 14, 2023, showcased photographic series, Locator sculptures, and installations emphasizing site-specific observation. By 2024, comprehensive retrospectives emerged, including "Nancy Holt: Circles of Light" at Gropius Bau in from March 21 to July 21, 2024, encompassing text works, photographs, films, and references to her projects. "Nancy Holt: Seeing in the Round" at the , on view from October 2024 through April 20, 2025, centered on her Locator series with outdoor installations like Dual Locators (1972) and Locator (P.S.1) (1980), framing urban views to alter perception. In 2025, exhibitions delved into thematic depths, with "Nancy Holt: Power Systems" at the from February 7 to June 29, examining her System Works on infrastructure like pipelines and electrical grids through sculpture, drawings, and films. "Echoes & Evolutions: Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels" at Sprüth Magers in New York from September 5 to October 25 showcased preparatory drawings, collages, photographs, and Studio Locator sculptures for her 1973–1976 earthwork, tracing its celestial alignments and light studies. These presentations reflect a reappraisal positioning Holt as a pioneering "perception artist" independent of her association with , with critics noting her prescient engagement with environmental systems and visibility of hidden infrastructures. The Holt/Smithson Foundation's advocacy has facilitated this recognition, evidenced by bequests like her papers to the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art in , underscoring her enduring influence on contemporary site-responsive practices.

Maintenance Challenges and Foundation Efforts

Nancy Holt's earthworks, particularly Sun Tunnels (1973–1976) in Utah's , face significant maintenance challenges due to their remote locations and exposure to harsh environmental conditions. The tunnels have developed cracks and damage from , including intense sunlight, wind, and temperature fluctuations, over decades of exposure. These issues are compounded by the inherent difficulties of preserving , such as limited access for regular inspections and the tension between allowing natural and preventing irreversible degradation. In response, the Dia Art Foundation, which acquired Sun Tunnels in 1999, initiated the first major conservation effort in April 2019, led by conservator Rosa Lowinger and a team addressing concrete cracks and erosion over a 10-day project. The Holt/Smithson Foundation, established to manage the estates of Holt and her husband , oversees the maintenance of her earthworks, including efforts to balance artistic intent with practical preservation needs. This foundation also supports research, exhibitions, and archival preservation, such as donating Holt's papers to the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art in 2021. For urban works like Dark Star Park (1979–1981) in Arlington, Virginia, challenges include determining repairs or replacements for elements affected by urban wear, with ongoing stewardship by local arts organizations post-Holt's 2014 death. These initiatives highlight the broader commitment to sustaining Holt's site-specific sculptures amid debates over intervention versus natural aging in conservation.

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  99. https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2019/04/23/sun-tunnels-pioneering/
  100. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/nancy-holt-sun-tunnels-dia-art-foundation-12418/
  101. https://www.academia.edu/124360549/Musealizing_Land_Art_Challenges_of_Preservation_in_Three_Case_Studies_Michael_Heizers_Double_Negative_Nancy_Holts_Sun_Tunnels_and_Robert_Smithsons_Amarillo_Ramp
  102. https://brooklynrail.org/2020/12/artonic/Full-Circle-The-HoltSmithson-Foundation/
  103. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nancy-holts-land-art-masterpiece-will-restored
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