Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels being lifted into place by a crane

Films by Holt and Smithson Screening at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

Three films by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are currently on view at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan.

The screening program MAM Screen 017 features three early moving image works from the 1970s by Holt and Smithson, including their collaborative film Swamp (1971)—an experimental work in which Holt attempts to navigate a New Jersey swamp using only the viewfinder of her 16mm Bolex camera and Smithson’s voice as her guides. The other two works on view are Smithson’s landmark film Spiral Jetty (1970), made in conjunction with the earthwork of the same name, and Holt’s 1978 film Sun Tunnels illustrating the process of creating her large scale earthwork in the Great Basin Desert of Utah.

Webinar on Thursday December 1, 2022 at 19:00 JST
Holt/Smithson Foundation Executive Director Lisa Le Feuvre will be giving a talk on Nancy Holt's moving-image works in conjunction with the screening at the Mori Art Museum titled “Learning with Nancy Holt for the Present.” Le Feuvre will be joined by Martin Germann, Adjunct Curator at the Mori Art Museum and curator of the Holt and Smithson screening program. Click here to register for the livestreamed webinar. 

The Holt and Smithson screening program will be on view at the Mori Art Museum through March 26, 2023.

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels [still] (1978)
16mm film
Color, sound
Duration: 26 minutes, 31 seconds
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York

Archived News

four images arranged in a grid

Announcing the 2023 Research Fellows

We are delighted to announce our 2023 Holt/Smithson Foundation Research Fellows!

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 these four Research Fellows to expand and develop critical research on Holt and Smithson.

Nancy Holt standing inside one of the Sun Tunnels, a large concrete cylinder in the desert

2023 Annual Lecture: Rebecca Solnit at the New Mexico Museum of Art

Holt/Smithson Foundation announces the second in the ten-year series of Annual Lectures, an initiative that invites artists, writers, and thinkers to raise questions and present research extending the creative legacies of the artists Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. Over the course of a decade, the Foundation will partner with a new institution each year to host lectures in ten distinct locations, each significant to Holt and Smithson.

installation view of Nancy Holt: Locating Perception

On Nancy Holt: Rita McBride and Aurora Tang in Conversation

To mark the closing of Nancy Holt: Locating Perception, Sprüth Magers is hosting a conversation between Rita McBride and Aurora Tang at the Los Angeles gallery. Holt's work remains crucial both to an understanding of land-based and conceptual practices of the late 1960s onward, as well as to contemporary approaches to the natural and built environments. McBride and Tang, who have long engaged with related questions in their projects and exhibitions, will discuss Holt's work and their varied practices. 

a collage with an of a large crane and king kong

Research Fellowship Webinar with Margo Handwerker

Join us on Thursday December 15th for a webinar by 2022 Holt/Smithson Research Fellow, Margo Handwerker. Margo will share her research surrounding Robert Smithson's 1972 proposal for Lake Edge Crescents in Ohio.

Information and Registration:
Thursday, December 15th
10:30 AM Mountain Time
Margot will present for 30 - 45 minutes and a question and answer session will follow.
Register in advance for this webinar.