What does it mean to notice how we see? Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House in Los Angeles brings Nancy Holt’s study of perception into a close conversation with the site. Here, light, sound, language, and movement meet as parallel systems for organizing perception.
Currently on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, are three films by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty (1970), Swamp (1971), and Sun Tunnels (1978). The presentation is located on Floor 4, in collection gallery 411 of the David Geffen Wing.
Between November 2025 and March 2026, works by Nancy Holt were included in All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today , a group exhibition dedicated to light as an artistic medium.
From October 2025 to February 2026 Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman in Innsbruck, Austria presented Nancy Holt, Michael Kienzer. The two person exhibition paired Nancy Holt with the Austrian artist Michael Kienzer, an artist who shares Holt’s interest in space, perception, and the relationship to nature.
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. Dedicated to Minimal art, the exhibition brings together an exceptional group of works from the Pinault Collection in dialogue with those of prestigious collections.
Joan Jonas: An Island Departure, with Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine presented between September 2025 and March 2026 a newly commissioned body of work by artist Joan Jonas (b. 1936) stemming from our artist commission The Island Project: Point of Departure.
Echoes & Evolutions: Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels was presented at Sprüth Magers, New York from September 5 to October 25, 2025. The exhibition focused on Sun Tunnels (1973–76), a landmark work in Nancy Holt’s oeuvre that encapsulates her sustained investigation of perception, systems, and site.
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.
Nancy Holt's 1969 concrete poem Hammond and her 1973 grommet work Untitled are on view in the exhibition Know at Bodenrader, in Chicago, Illinois. On view alongside with these two works by Holt is a hand-bound artist book by Hanne Darboven from the collection of Holt/Smithson Foundation.
Nancy Holt: Power Systems at the Wexner Center for the Arts (2024) featured the most extensive inquiry to date into Nancy Holt’s exploration of systems. Her sculptures, installations, photographic series, and works on paper consistently examined literal and metaphorical flows of power.
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.
In September of 1969 Nancy Holt traveled throughout England and Wales with Robert Smithson and both artists created artworks inspired by the landscape on their journey. While visiting Wistman's Wood in Dartmoor, Nancy Holt created two artworks that are on view in the exhibition Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape at the RAMM—Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery.
Bluhm Family Terrace
From October 5, 2024 until April 20, 2025 a focused presentation of Nancy Holt’s Locators takes place at the Art Institute of Chicago, on the Bluhm Family Terrace.
Four Decades of Experiments with Sounds, Images, and Objects
Holt/Smithson Foundation and Gropius Bau are pleased to announce the most comprehensive presentation of Nancy Holt in Germany to date. Nancy Holt (1938–2014) reframed art’s capacity to engage with essential questions surrounding nature, ecology and the perception of our environment. Over five decades, her pivotal work encompassed text, poetry, audio, photography, film and video and land art. She consistently experimented with sound, image, and the very nature of objects to redraw the boundaries of what art can be and where it can be found.
Presented in Partnership with the New Mexico Museum of Art
We are proud to partner with the New Mexico Museum of Art to present a special screening event of Nancy Holt's film and video works at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 16 – 17, 2024.
This fall the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas launches the exhibition Groundswell: Women of Land Art. The exhibition features a number of significant works by Nancy Holt, including the first posthumous presentation of Pipeline (1986).
The New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico launches this month.
This summer the exhibition Nancy Holt / Inside Outside launches at MACBA, Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Opening on July 12, 2023 this major survey is on show through January 7, 2024.
TARO NASU, Sprüth Magers, and Holt/Smithson Foundation are pleased to announce Nancy Holt’s first solo exhibition in Japan.
Nancy Holt: Locating Perception at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles in 2023 addressed Holt’s consistent examination of how we attempt to understand our place in the world. Holt is one of the most important figures of earth, land, and conceptual art movements.
Works by Nancy Holt are currently on view in the exhibition Ecstatic Land at Ballroom Marfa. Inside the gallery space is Holt's 1985 sculpture Electrical Lighting for Reading Room and in the courtyard of Ballroom Marfa is the first posthumous presentation of Starfire, a work Holt first presented in Alaska in 1986.
Nancy Holt's 1978 film Sun Tunnels is currently on view in the exhibition Feixe de Luz: Escultura Projetada, Cinema Exposto at the Centro de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira, Portugal.
The exhibition's title translates to "Light Beam: Projected Sculpture, Exposed Cinema."
We are very pleased to announce the exhibition Nancy Holt / Inside Outside launches this June, produced by Bildmuseet, one of Sweden’s foremost contemporary art venues. The exhibition explores the artist’s rich artistic legacy through a selection of works spanning 1967 to 1992. This is the most ambitious exhibition of her work to date. Perceptions and demarcations of being "inside" and "outside" guide this survey exhibition.
A significant selection of audio works by Nancy Holt were presented in the 2022 group exhibition "Sound as Sculpture" at The Warehouse, Dallas.
Holt/Smithson Foundation and Sprüth Magers are delighted to announce the first solo exhibition by Nancy Holt at the Berlin gallery, featuring her iconic installation, Mirrors of Light I (1974). Throughout her practice, Holt was interested in the use of light as a medium, while simultaneously examining it as subject matter in its own right.
In 2021 the Foundation worked with Lismore Castle Arts in County Waterford, Ireland to present Light and Language between March 27 and October 10, 2021. This exhibition, and accompanying publication, presented Nancy Holt’s alongside the artists A.K.
This September Nancy Holt: Points of View launches at Parafin, London. The exhibition explores Nancy Holt’s fascination with language and systems of perception.
Holt/Smithson Foundation is delighted that Nancy Holt (1938-2014) will be the subject of a ground-breaking exhibition at Dia Art Foundation this Fall. This dedicated exhibition is the first to focus on Holt’s room-sized light installations Holes of Light (1973) and Mirrors of Light I (1974).