a large lump of asphalt and a small collection of flight arranged on a white pedastal

2021 Research Fellows: Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt

We are pleased to announce the final fellowship awardees in our 2021 Holt/Smithson Foundation Research Fellowship season: Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt.

Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt will collaborate on a Research Fellowship focused on Robert Smithson’s 1968 work Asphalt Lump and his related work made in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany. 

Markus is an artist and curator. He is Professor for Fine Art Ceramics at the Institute for Ceramic and Glass Art (IKKG), University of Applied Sciences Koblenz. Eva Schmidt is an art theorist and curator. From 2004 to 2019 she was head of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, and previously Director of the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen. In 2000 Eva (with Kai Voeckler) edited of the German translation of The Writings of Robert Smithson. 

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 Markus and Eva to expand and develop critical research on Smithson.

Robert Smithson, Asphalt Lump (1968)
From Indifferent Matter: From Object to Sculpture (25 July – 20 October 2013) at the Henry Moore Institute,
Leeds
8 x 35 x 26 inches (20 x 90 x 66 cm)
Shown alongside a collection of chipped flint known as eoliths from Leeds Museums and Galleries Collection.
Photo: Jerry Hardman-Jones

Image courtesy Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Archived News

an image of a sign saying 'sun air'

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

a constellation of the big dipper made of fire pits

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.

forthcoming

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.

Robert Smithson looking at the camera from the back of a stationwagon loaded with rocks

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.

four steel pipes extending up from the floor with four viewing pipes pointed at four black painted circles on the wall

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.