Nancy Holt, Holes of Light (1973)
LoGiudice Gallery, New York
650 watt quartz lights, polyurethane board, graphite

Room bisected by a wall with circular holes cut in it to let light pass through, creating orbs of light on the other side.

Nancy Holt, Holes of Light (1973)
LoGiudice Gallery, New York
650 watt quartz lights, polyurethane board, graphite

Light cast on a wall in the shape of a circle

Nancy Holt, Holes of Light (1973)
LoGiudice Gallery, New York
650 watt quartz lights, polyurethane board, graphite

Nancy Holt, Holes of Light (1973)
LoGiudice Gallery, New York
650 watt quartz lights, polyurethane board, graphite

Installation view: Nancy Holt / Inside Outside, MACBA—Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2023
Photograph: Miquel Coll Molas
Image Courtesy Holt/Smithson Foundation and MACBA

Nancy Holt, Holes of Light [detail] (1973)
Installation view: Nancy Holt, Dia:Chelsea, New York, 2018
Photograph: Bill Jacobsen Studio, New York

Light hitting a wall in the middle of a room, with holes cut in the wall to allow circles of light to be cast on the back wall.

Nancy Holt, Holes of Light [detail] (1973)
Installation view: Nancy Holt, Dia:Chelsea, New York, 2018
Photograph: Bill Jacobsen Studio, New York

Opening of Nancy Holt at Dia:Chelsea

Photograph: Don Stahl

Opening of Nancy Holt at Dia:Chelsea

Photograph: Don Stahl

1973—1976

Holes of Light

Nancy Holt

1973

650 watt quartz lights, polyurethane board, graphite

15 × 27 × 20 ft. (4.57 × 8.23 × 6.10 m)

Collection Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation

Nancy Holt's Holes of Light consists of a room bisected by a wall, which is perforated with eight circular holes arranged along a diagonal. Two lights are located on either side of the wall, and an alternating current switches between them so that one side of the room is dark and the other light. The projections of light are outlined on the walls so that the shapes are alluded to, even when they cannot be seen. The work generates a dynamic experience of the relationships between viewer and art object, practical and perceived, sensory and conceptual.

This room-sized installation was first presented at LoGiudice Gallery in New York in 1973, and the footprint of this first showing sets the scale for the sculpture.

Writing

Published writing by Nancy Holt

Holes of Light

Nancy Holt

1. Concrete vs. Ephemeral

Light, like sight, can be channeled, controlled so that shapes of light can materialize. In Holes of Light these shapes of contained light were outlined on the wall in pencil giving them even more of a physical presence, so that even when the light or sight is absent, a trace remains.

2. Light as the Concretization of Sight

Holes of Light

Writing

Holes of Light

Related Info

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