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

a notebook showing calculations for Sun Tunnels

Nancy Holt’s Project Files Digitized at the Archives of American Art

The papers of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are held at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. This series documents more than 50 projects developed by Holt from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, offering insights into her working processes and the development of her ideas from initial conception through to completion.

poster for Smithson's film Spiral Jetty 1970 cropped

Soft Network Benefit Auction

We are pleased to participate in the Soft Network Benefit Auction, open on Artsy from September 23 until October 7, 2026. The auction brings together works in support of Soft Network and the Artist Foundations and Estate Leaders List (AFELL), an international network for artists and stewards of artists’ estates and legacies. Holt/Smithson Foundation has donated two rare works of art by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson to the auction to help further this goal.