Nancy Holt, Dual Locators (1972)
Installation view: Nancy Holt: Seeing in the Round, The Art Istitute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 2024
Steel pipe, black paint, mirror
Overall dimensions variable (site responsive); Locators: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm) each; mirror: 8 in. (20 cm) diameter
Photograph: Jonathan Mathias
Image courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago

A locator sculpture installed on an outdoor terrace pointing toward a large painted black circle on the wall

Two Locator sculptures installed on an outdoor terrace pointing toward a large painted black circle on the wall

An interior view of a pipe looking at another pipe and large painted black circle

a freestanding metal pipe and a circular mirror mounted on a wall

Nancy Holt, Dual Locators [detail] (1972)
Installation view: Nancy Holt / Inside Outside, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden, 2022
Steel pipe, black paint, mirror
Overall dimensions variable (site responsive); Locators: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm) each; mirror: 8 in. (20 cm) diameter
Photograph: Mikael Lundgren

Nancy Holt, Dual Locators [detail] (1972)
Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locators, Parafin, London, 2015
Steel pipe, black paint, mirror
Overall dimensions variable (site responsive)
Locators: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm) each; mirror: 8 in. (20 cm) diameter
Photograph: Peter Mallet

Nancy Holt, Dual Locators (1972)
Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locators, Parafin, London, 2015
Steel pipe, black paint, mirror
Overall dimensions variable (site responsive)
Locators: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm) each; mirror: 8 in. (20 cm) diameter
Photograph: Peter Mallet

1970—1972

Dual Locators

Nancy Holt

1972

Steel pipe, black paint, mirror

Overall dimensions variable (site responsive); Locators: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm) each; mirror: 8 in. (20 cm) diameter

In 1971 Holt created the first of her Locators, sculptural “seeing devices” drawing attention to visual perception and place. The Locators developed out of Holt’s interest in the circularity of photography and are simple constructions made from industrial pipes welded into a T-shape, to be looked through with one eye. Holt created her first Locators looking out the windows of her studio in the West Village onto details of the built environment, such as a cracked window or an exhaust pipe.

Holt expanded her visual language with Locators through what she called "Loci"—painted ellipses that resolve into perfect black circles edged with a ring of light when looking through the Locators. Dual Locators is a sculpture that inhabits space through two aligned metal Locators and two circular elements on opposite walls. The view through one Locator perfectly frames a large black painted Locus on one wall, while a circular mirror fills one's vision when looking through the sculpture in the reverse direction.

Dual Locators was first installed at the University of Montana Art Gallery in Missoula, Montana, in 1972. During this time in Montana Holt was also working on her outdoor Locator work Missoula Ranch Locators: Vision Encompassed (1972). Photographs from her initial presentation of Dual Locators in 1972 have yet to be found.

Writing

Writing by Artist

a room with an ellipse of light on a wall on the left, a locator in the middle, and a cutout in a window on the right

The Dialectics of Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight

Nancy Holt

1. Artificial Light vs. Natural Light.

2. Stasis vs. Change: The light intensity of the spotlight remains constant while the sunlight grows brighter or dimmer depending on the time of day and the weather, eventually ending in darkness after sunset when only a dark hole in the window and an oval of light on the wall remain.

3. Two-Dimensional Perspective vs. Three-Dimensional Perspective: Looking through the locator one way, vision dead-ends on the wall, the oval of light cast by the spotlight becoming a circle of light. Looking the other way, the window frame bar, which is visually off-center frontally, bisects the circle of vision. The white bricks of the adjacent building seem to lose depth and approach the window bar and the viewer, resulting in a change of depth perception.

The Locator pieces existed to be looked through. Not that I didn't think about how they looked—I tried different diameters and lengths and heights until I arrived at what was the best visually. Even if you weren't looking through them, when you looked at them, they immediately signaled sight.

Nancy Holt

Meyer, James. "Interview with Nancy Holt." In Sightlines, edited by Alena J. Williams, 226. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

Dual Locators

Writing

The Dialectics of Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight

Related Info

See Also