a sand quary with a jetty, canal, and a spiraling hill of earth and trees in the background

2020 Open Days at Broken Circle/Spiral Hill

In order to support the health and well-being of our visitors and staff, and in line with recommendations from public health officials regarding COVID-19, the planned 2020 Open Days at Robert Smithson’s Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971) will be postponed to 2021. Those who have booked for the 2020 dates will be given priority booking for 2021, and will be contacted directly.

2021 is the fiftieth anniversary of Broken Circle/Spiral Hill. Throughout the year, Holt/Smithson Foundation, in collaboration with Land Art Contemporary and CBK Emmen will organize a program of Open Days, performances, and screenings. In the Fall an international summit titled What is the Time of Land Art? will take place. Details of the program will be announced at the end of this year.

Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971) is the only earthwork by Smithson located outside the United States. Situated in a former sand mine in Emmen, part of the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill was commissioned for the 1971 exhibition Sonsbeek: Beyond the Pale. The mine quarry was cut into the side of a terminal moraine, the very edge of glacial movement. The geological and industrial history of the region drew Smithson to this particular location, and he was fascinated by the constructed landscape of the Netherlands. Broken Circle/Spiral Hill is visionary in its attention to ecological concerns and the potential of land reclamation.

Broken Circle/Spiral Hill is an artwork of two parts. Broken Circle is a semi-circular jetty built into the quarry lake, filled with reflecting green water. Spiral Hill rises into a cone-shaped hill beside the lake, and a spiraling path leads to the top from where Broken Circle can be observed. At the center is an immovable huge boulder deposited by the ancient glacial movements.

Robert Smithson, Broken Circle/SpiralHill (1971)
Emmen, The Netherlands

Broken Circle
Water, sand, and boulder
Diameter: 140 ft. (42.6 m); canal: 12 ft. (3.6 m) wide, 10-15 ft. (3-4.5 m) deep

Spiral Hill
Earth, topsoil, sand
Diameter: 75 ft. (22.9 m) at base

Photograph: Robert Smithson
 

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

Archived News

spiral jetty film still

Films by Holt and Smithson on view at The Museum of Modern Art

Three films by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are currently on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collection gallery 411 of the David Geffen Wing. This presentation focuses on Spiral Jetty (1970), Swamp (1971), and Sun Tunnels (1978). Newly restored scans of the first two works are presented as part of a collaboration between Holt/Smithson Foundation and MoMA to preserve their moving-image work.

four wooden pillars sticking out of the earth with mountains in the background

Chapter Nine of Tuesday Texts

Throughout February 2026, we are publishing the ninth chapter of our Tuesday Text Series as part of our ongoing Scholarly Text Program, which invites thinkers to focus on a single artwork by Holt and/or Smithson. Developed as a tool for researchers at all stages, the Scholarly Text Program aims to publish two essays on each work, presenting differing opinions and approaches and drawing connections to topics that range from geology and ecology to poetry, architecture, public art, sculpture, drawing, film, philosophy, site, and

signage for an exhibition

"Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles

What does it mean to notice how we see? "Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center at the Schindler House in Los Angeles offers an encounter where art and architecture shape perception together. This exhibition to brings Holt’s work into a responsive dialogue with the Schindler House, inviting visitors to experience art and architecture as partners in seeing.

a short typewritten text within a circle, with Nancy Holt's signature in the bottom right corner

Nancy Holt concrete poem on show in Paris at Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles

Nancy Holt started making art in 1966, and her first works took the form of concrete poems: artworks testing the structure, content, and form of language. A key concrete poem, "The World Though a Circle," from 1972 is currently on show in the exhibition Deep Fields at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris until March 23, 2026.