A woman leaning against a mossy tree with dappled light

Nancy Holt and Parafin

We are delighted to announce representation of Nancy Holt by Parafin, London. The partnership between Holt/Smithson Foundation and Parafin marks the continuation of a long-standing relationship. In 2012 Parafin Director Ben Tufnell curated the first exhibition of Holt’s photoworks at Haunch of Venison in London. In 2015 Parafin presented the first exhibition to focus on Holt’s important Locator works, a project initiated in collaboration with the artist.

Opened by Ben Tufnell and Matt Watkins in 2014, Parafin is located in Mayfair, London and represents emerging talents, such Flora Yukhnovich and Indre Serpytyte, as well as major international figures such as Hamish Fulton, Fernando Casasempere, Tim Head, as well as Nancy Holt.

Lisa Le Feuvre, inaugural Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation says: “Nancy Holt was an artist who rethought the limits and possibilities of art. For five decades she asked difficult questions about how we understand our place in the world. Her art continues to inspire artists and recalibrate the possibilities of what art can be and where it can be found. Our role at Holt/Smithson Foundation is to care for Nancy Holt’s creative legacies and we are delighted to be working with Parafin to celebrate this incomparable artist’s ideas.”

Ben Tufnell, Director of Parafin, says: ”It is a huge honor for us to continue to explore and celebrate Nancy Holt’s extraordinary achievements and enduring legacy. When we initiated Parafin in 2013 Nancy was one of the first artists to commit to our program and so we are very happy to continue to bring her work to new audiences.”

In October 2020 Parafin presents a solo exhibition of Holt’s work, spanning a room-sized installation, drawings, and photoworks. Next year Holt is the focus of an ambitious exhibition at Lismore Castle Arts in Ireland, Light and Language, which brings her work in conversation with five artists working today who have a long interest in Holt’s ideas. Alongside sculpture, photography, film, and performance by A.K. Burns, Matthew Day Jackson, Dennis McNulty, Charlotte Moth, and Katie Paterson Light and Language presents Electrical System, one of Holt’s little-known expansive System Works from the early 1980s. In 2022 Holt is the subject of a major retrospective at Bildmuseet, Sweden.

Nancy Holt at Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor National Park, U.K. (1969)

Photograph: Robert Smithson

© Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, 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.