Steel pipe
42 x 12 x 1 ½ in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 3.8 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Locator in Window is the very first of Nancy Holt's Studio Locators directed towards the view outside the window of her studio on Greenwich Street in New York City. Holt's first sculptures evolved out of her interest in photography and the lens as a tool to alter perception. In the early 1970s Holt began to create these “seeing devices” to draw attention to the impact of vision on place and perception with her Locators. Comprising T-shaped industrial piping to be looked through with one eye, the Locators first focused on views in and from her studio, later expanding into the landscape with Missoula Ranch Locators: Vision Encompassed (1972) and earthworks Sun Tunnels and Hydra’s Head (1974).
Locator in Window sits within the window sill and points out toward the New York City skyline. The view through the Locator focuses attention on the shapes and fragmented architectural details of this smaller portion of a large expansive view, a reminder that there is always more to be seen than is apparent at first glance. Holt would return to explore these ideas of constricting vision in an urban setting further a few years later in her moving image works Going Around in Circles (1973) and Points of View (1974).