Holt’s Sunlight in Sun Tunnels on show in Madrid
An exhibition print of Nancy Holt’s 1976 work Sunlight in Sun Tunnels is currently on show in the group exhibition Tempus Fugit at Galeria Cayón, Madrid.
This composite inkjet print on archival rag paper comprises thirty images of sunlight and shadow seen in one of the four cylinders that makes up Holt’s iconic earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973-76), located in the Great Desert Basin, Utah and a part of the collection of Dia Art Foundation. On July 14 1976 Holt photographed the changing light every half hour from 6.30 in the morning to 9.00 in the evening, and formed these thirty moments in a single composite photograph.
The exhibition, which continues to February 2019, departs from a verse by the poet Virgil ‘Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore’ (‘But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail’). Bringing together work by Bleda y Rosa, Jan Dibbets, Barry Flanagan, and Bernar Venet with Nancy Holt, Tempus Fugit explores the paradox of representing and ephemeral phenomenon (the passage of time) with a static medium (photography).
Nancy Holt, Sunlight in Sun Tunnels (1976)
Composite inkjet print on archival rag paper
127.3 x 156.2 cm.
30 photographs of sunlight and shadow in one tunnel photographed every half hour from 6.30am to 9.00 pm on July 14, 1976
Edition of five, plus one artist proof
© Holt/Smithson Foundation, licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
