a circular jetty and canal with a large boulder in the center

Friday Film Screening—Nancy Holt's "Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill"

In celebration of this week's livestream event From Dawn till Dusk:an online encounter between two earthworks by Robert Smithson on September 10th, today we are hosting a special Friday Film screening of Nancy Holt’s film Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971/2011).

From Dawn till Dusk presented a special livestream conversation between two iconic earthworks by Robert Smithson: from first light at Spiral Jetty, located  at the Great Salt Lake in the state of Utah, and concluding with last light at Broken Circle/Spiral Hill located in Emmen in Netherlands.  This special digital event is a part of Land Art Lives, an on-going research project and upcoming international conference in the Netherlands on October 3, 2024, exploring the relevance of land art for our current times. Watch the recording of the livestream on the Land Art Lives page here.

In 1971 Robert Smithson was invited to create an earthwork in the Netherlands for the recurring outdoor exhibition Sonsbeek by the curator Wim Beeren. Beside a working sand quarry in the province of Drenthe and cut into the side of a terminal moraine, Smithson created Broken Circle/Spiral Hill—his only extant earthwork outside of the United States. Broken Circle/Spiral Hill is an artwork of two parts. Broken Circle is a semi-circular jetty built into the quarry lake; at the center is a huge immovable boulder deposited by ancient glacial movements. Cone-shaped Spiral Hill can be climbed via spiraling path and at the top the quarry and Broken Circle can be seen from above.

Working with Nancy Holt, the intention was to create a film as an integral part of Broken Circle/Spiral Hill. Holt made several moving image works that feature earthworks by Smithson. In 1971 Smithson created a series of storyboards and Holt filmed Broken Circle/Spiral Hill on 16mm stock. The intention was to interweave material documenting the North Sea flood of 1953 that overwhelmed the sea defenses of The Netherlands and Belgium. Smithson died before the film was completed and in 2011, on the fortieth anniversary of Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, Theo Tegelaers of SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain invited Holt to the complete the film. The resultant Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971/2011) combines her original 1971 footage with 2011 material and archival documentation of the flood to create a portrait of Broken Circle/Spiral Hill and its unique surroundings.

Nancy Holt's Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill will be available to stream online for 24 hours starting at 12pm Mountain Time (8:00pm Central European Time) on September 13, 2024.

Nancy Holt, Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971/2011)
16mm film and video, black and white and color, sound
Duration: 20 minutes, 56 seconds
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York and Video Data Bank, Chicago

Archived News

spiral jetty film still

Films by Holt and Smithson on view at The Museum of Modern Art

Three films by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are currently on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collection gallery 411 of the David Geffen Wing. This presentation focuses on Spiral Jetty (1970), Swamp (1971), and Sun Tunnels (1978). Newly restored scans of the first two works are presented as part of a collaboration between Holt/Smithson Foundation and MoMA to preserve their moving-image work.

four wooden pillars sticking out of the earth with mountains in the background

Chapter Nine of Tuesday Texts

Throughout February 2026, we are publishing the ninth 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. Developed as a tool for researchers at all stages, the Scholarly Text Program aims to publish two essays on each work, presenting differing opinions and approaches and drawing connections to topics that range from geology and ecology to poetry, architecture, public art, sculpture, drawing, film, philosophy, site, and

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," 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.