an image of Sky Mound being constructed

Holt's "Sky Mound" drawings in "Waste" at Museum Ostwall

Opening this week at Museum Ostwall at the Dortmunder U is the exhibition Waste. An exhibition about the global routes of rubbish, which features works by Nancy Holt relating to her unfinished project Sky Mound (1984-). Waste is on view through July 26, 2026.

The worldwide circulation of waste and its consequences for people and the environment are the focus of the exhibition, which presents over 50 international works of art. Since the 1960s, artists have increasingly engaged in a critical exploration of what society considers to be waste.

Sky Mound was developed for a landfill in New Jersey. In 1993, Holt described landfills as “shunned earthen forms – forgotten trash heaps relegated to the realms of the unconscious. By the end of the century, with more reliance on improved methods of recycling and incinerating our refuse, laws will go into effect which will prohibit the use of landfills for garbage disposal. These heaps of garbage will be seen as the artifacts of our generation, our legacy to the future.”

Waste presents five of Holt’s drawings for this ambitious project, alongside documentation of the early stages of its construction.

Nancy Holt's Sky Mound under construction in 1991

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

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

signage for an exhibition

"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.