a gallery with photographs on the wall

Holt works on view in "Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape" at RAMM

Works by Nancy Holt are currently on view in the exhibition Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape at RAMM—Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter, England. 

In September of 1969 Nancy Holt  traveled throughout England and Wales with Robert Smithson and both artists created artworks inspired by the landscape on their journey. While visiting Wistman's Wood in Dartmoor, Nancy Holt created two artworks: the photowork Trail Markers, which shows a series of orange dots used to navigate a path to Wistman's Wood, and the photo composite Wistman's Wood, which shows the place Holt created her first Buried Poem for Robert Smithson, are both on view in the exhibition through February 23, 2025.

One of the programs during the run of the exhibition features Holt/Smithson Foundation Research Fellow Joy Sleeman in conversation with artist Ashish Ghadiali on Wednesday, February 12. Joy Sleeman has written on Holt's Trail Markers and her time in the UK for our Scholarly Text Program in the essay "Nancy Holt Trail Markers (1969) or, the walk from Wistman’s Wood."

Learn more about the Holt artworks in the exhibition on our website and learn about the other artists in this group exhibition on the RAMM website.

Installation view: Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape, RAMM—Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, England, 2024
Featuring Nancy Holt's Trail Markers (1969)
Photograph: Simon Tutty
Image courtesy RAMM 

Archived News

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" on view in "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce

Nancy Holt's 1972 sculpture "Locators with Loci" is on view in the exhibition "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris until January 18, 2026. Curated by Jessica Morgan, Director of Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition traces the scope Minimal Arr through over a hundred works by some forty international artists.

a woman walking up a sand dune hill with her back to the camera

Joan Jonas: An Island Departure at the Farnsworth Art Museum

"Joan Jonas: An Island Departure, with Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson"  is currently on show at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine through to March 1, 2026. This special collaboration is part of our on-ongoing series of projects with artists working today.