All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today

Nov 15, 2025 – Jan 3, 2026

Group Exhibition

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

Works by Nancy Holt are included in the exhibition All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today at Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Germany. This group exhibition is dedicated to light as an artist medium, combining historical works with approaches from contemporary artists.

Light was a perpetual fascination for Nancy Holt in her four decades of art-making. Whether emanating from the stars or plugged into electricity grids, Holt was interested in light as a phenomenon, an idea, and a material. Many of Holt's works investigate the relationship between light and sight by manipulating light to draw attention to its perceptual characteristics. Three artworks by Nancy Holt that illustrate these themes are on view in All Light: Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight (1972), Dual Locators (1972), and Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings (1978).

Looking up through Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight, one sees an ellipse of light created by a spotlight aimed at the wall, which resolves into a perfect orb of light when looking through the Locator. Moving around the Locator to look the other direction, one sees through a circular aperture in the window to the outside. In her text "The Dialectics of Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight" Holt articulates her interest in the contrast between the persistent artificial glow of the electric light with the ever-changing natural light. By channeling vision through the Locator and manipulating light through spatial interventions in Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight, Holt draws parallels between light and sight and poses questions about the interrelated nature of these two phenomena.

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.

Nancy Holt photographed the series Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings in 1978 as a study of how light and shadow can be made material. To create Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings, Holt shined a light through various curved cutouts and captured the resulting shapes on 35mm film as they were projected on an opposing wall. In this series—which is one of her many investigations of light—Holt distills the photographic medium to its essence. By referring to the images as “drawings,” she points to the origins of photography, where the process was described by Henry Fox Talbot as being the “pencil of nature.” With no recognizable object of reference, Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings invites the viewer to observe the interplay of light and shadow and grapple with the process of their own perception.

All Light includes artworks by Larry Bell, Angela Bulloch, Mary Corse, Olafur Eliasson, Nancy Holt, Robert Irwin, Tatsuo Miyajima, and others.

Nancy Holt, Locator with Spotlight and Sunlight (1972)
Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locating Perception, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, 2022
Steel pipe, spotlight, vinyl and window
Overall dimensions variable (site responsive)
Locator: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm)
Photograph: Robert Wedemeyer

An exhibition space with a Locator in the center with an ellipse of light on one wall and a circular cutout over a window

Nancy Holt, Installation view, Dia:Chelsea, New York, 2018.

Bill Jacobson Studio, New York

Person looking through one of Nancy Holt's Locators toward a window.

Nancy Holt, Installation view, Dia:Chelsea, New York, 2018.

Bill Jacobson Studio, New York

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, Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings [detail] (1978)
Twenty-two inkjet prints on archival rag paper from original 35mm transparencies
19½ × 30 in. (50 × 76 cm) each
Edition of 3 + 1AP

Photograph of circular light projection on wall

Nancy Holt, Light and Shadow Photo-Drawings [detail] (1978)
Twenty-two inkjet prints on archival rag paper from original 35mm transparencies
19½ × 30 in. (50 × 76 cm) each
Edition of 3 + 1AP

More Exhibitions

A black metal pipe with a horizontal top is pointing directly at a black circle painted on the wall

Shifting Landscapes

Nov 1, 2024 – Jan 1, 2026

Group Exhibition

Whitney Museum of American Art

https://whitney.org/exhibitions/shifting-landscapes

Nancy Holt's Locator (Studio Corner) from 1971 is on view in the exhibition Shifting Landscapes at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This marks the first time the work has been installed since the work entered the collection of the Whitney in 2006.

Something in the Water

Apr 18 – Oct 26, 2025

Group Exhibition

MAXXI

https://www.maxxi.art/en/events/something-in-the-water/

Works by Nancy Holt are included in the exhibition Something in the Water, on view at MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, in Rome, Italy.

a large crane lifting one of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels into place with people surrounding

Echoes & Evolutions: Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels

Sep 5 – Oct 25, 2025

Solo Exhibition

Sprüth Magers, New York

https://spruethmagers.com/

Holt/Smithson Foundation and Sprüth Magers are delighted to present Echoes & Evolutions: Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, the first solo exhibition of the late artist (1938–2014) at the New York gallery. Holt’s large-scale earthwork Sun Tunnels is a landmark in the artist’s oeuvre and encapsulates her investigation of perception, systems, and site. Showcasing many previously unseen drawings, collages, photographs and two of her Studio Locator sculptures, this exhibition offers insight into the process and ideas behind the creation of Sun Tunnels.

two people looking through sculptural seeing devices at black circular shapes painted on a white wall

Minimal

Oct 8, 2025 – Jan 18, 2026

Group Exhibition

Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection, Paris, France

https://www.pinaultcollection.com/en/boursedecommerce

This fall Nancy Holt's 1972 work Locators with Loci is on view in the exhibition Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce, opening October 8, 2025. The Bourse de Commerce will host a major exhibition dedicated to Minimal art, bringing together an exceptional group of works from the Pinault Collection in dialogue with those of prestigious collections. Minimal traces the diversity of this movement since the 1960s, when a whole generation of artists initiated a radical approach to art.