person sitting on the ground between two piles of books

Friday Film Program: Season 2

This November Holt/Smithson Foundation invites you to join us for our second season of Friday Films.

This season of Friday Films presents films made by Holt and Smithson that relate to two current solo exhibitions of Robert Smithson’s work in Europe: Hypothetical Islands at Marian Goodman Gallery London and Primordial Beginnings at Galerie Marian Goodman Paris. Each weekend during November and early December we will be sharing on of the five films on view in Hypothetical Islands.

These two exhibitions mark a new partnership between Holt/Smithson Foundation and Marian Goodman Gallery, who exclusively represents Robert Smithson. Hypothetical Islands will pay attention to Smithson’s enduring interest in islands. It will present over fifty works spanning 1961 to 1973, many of which will be exhibited for the first time in many decades. In Paris, Primordial Beginnings investigates Smithson’s exploration of, to use his own words, “origins and primordial beginnings, […] the archetypal nature of things.” Both Hypothetical Islands and Primordial Beginnings show Smithson’s prescience and continued importance for our present.

Each film in the program will be made available from 12 p.m. Mountain Time (the time zone of our home base in New Mexico) on Friday through to 12 p.m. Mountain Time on Monday. A video introduction from individual artists and scholars will be shared Thursday before the screening.

The films will be available on Vimeo and on InstagramTV. Please stay tuned to our Holt/Smithson Foundation Instagram and Twitter pages for updates on the Friday Film Program and links to the films.

Friday Film Program Season 2 Schedule:

November 13, 2020:    
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970)

November 20, 2020:    
Nancy Holt, Mangrove Ring (1971)

December 4, 2020:    
Nancy Holt, The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013)

December 11, 2020:    
Nancy Holt, Bob with Books (1971)

December 18, 2020:    
Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, Mono Lake (1968/2004)

Still from Nancy Holt, Bob with Books (1971)
Color, silent
16 mm film

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

Archived News

large steel duct coming out of the ground and spanning large gaps with a person standing underneath

Chapter Seven of Tuesday Texts

We are happy to announce that throughout October we are publishing a seventh 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. 

Every Tuesday we will publish a text to our website that includes images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation reference, and endnotes pointing to the author’s references.

an image of a book with a Smithson drawing on the cover

Letters and early drawings by Robert Smithson published in Centre Pompidou journal

The Fall issue of the Centre Pompidou journal Les cahiers du musée national d’art moderne publishes for the very first time Robert Smithson’s letters and writings from Rome, accompanied by previously unpublished early drawings.

The French language publication includes translations of letters Smithson wrote to Nancy Holt in 1959-1961 and letters Smithson sent to George Lester between 1960 and 1963. George Lester offered Smithson his first solo international exhibition at Galleria George Lester in Rome in 1961.