2021 Research Fellow: Scout Hutchinson

We are pleased to announce our next 2021 Holt/Smithson Foundation Research Fellowship awardee: Scout Hutchinson.

Scout Hutchinson is a recent graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, where she earned an MA in Art History. She has provided curatorial support to art institutions including deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Massachusetts; the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College; the Jewish Museum in New York; and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum at the University of Oklahoma, where she is currently a Mellon Curatorial Intern.

Scout’s Fellowship will expand on her Master’s thesis “Occupying Space: Land Art and the Red Power Movement, c. 1965–78,” focusing on Nancy Holt’s 1974 work Hydra’s Head.

Our Research Fellowships aim to encourage new research on the work, ideas, and creative legacies of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. We look forward to thinking with Scout to expand and develop critical research on Nancy Holt.

Nancy Holt, Hydra’s Head (1974)
Along the Niagara River, Artpark, Lewiston, New York, USA
Concrete, earth, water
Overall dimensions: 28 x 62 ft. (8.5 x 18.9 m)
Pool Diameters: two 4 ft. (1.2 m), three 3 ft. (.9 m) , one 2 ft. (.6 m)
Pool Depth: 3 ft. (.9 m)

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

Archived News

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.

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 2," from 1972 is currently on show in the exhibition Deep Fields at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris until March 23, 2026.

Nancy Holt's Starfire acquired by Powder Art Foundation

We are very pleased to share Nancy Holt’s 1986 sculpture "Starfire" has found a permanent home in the collection of Powder Art Foundation in Eden, Utah. Powder Art Foundation is an outdoor art museum that works closely with Dia Art Foundation. "Starfire" comprises eight pits arranged to mirror the Big Dipper constellation and the North Star. The flames create a terrestrial map of the night sky, bringing the energy of distant stars down to earth.

Holt artworks in "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Light was a constant source of fascination for Nancy Holt throughout her four decades of artmaking. Whether drawn from the stars or powered by electricity, she approached light as a phenomenon, an idea, and a material in itself. Three of her pivotal works investigating the perceptual qualities of light are featured in the exhibition "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany.

Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson

In 1968 Robert Smithson declared: “A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance.” On show until January 20, "Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson" at Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles takes him at his word and invites eighteen artists to join Smithson on the floor as partners who resist, improvise, and extend the rhythm of his thinking.

Holt's "Locators with Loci" in "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce

Nancy Holt's 1972 sculpture "Locators with Loci" were on view in the exhibition "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris between October 8, 2025 and January 18, 2026. Curated by Jessica Morgan, Director of Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition traced the scope Minimal Arr through over a hundred works by some forty international artists.