Nancy Holt and Sprüth Magers

We are delighted to announce representation of Nancy Holt by Sprüth Magers, expanding our on-going gallery representation with Parafin.

Our partnership with Sprüth Magers launches this month at Art Basel’s Online Viewing Room: Pioneers in a pairing of Nancy Holt with Hanne Darboven, followed by solo exhibitions in the Berlin and Los Angles galleries this Fall.  Berlin will present Holt’s room-sized installation Mirrors of Light II, while Los Angeles will take a journey through three decades of Holt’s works on paper, photography, and sculpture.

The Art Basel presentation is on show from March 24 to 27, 2021. It centers on a work by Hanne Darboven in Nancy Holt’s private collection. One week after the passing Robert Smithson on July 20 1973, Darboven sent Holt a hand-bound artist book composed of seven parts, filled with Darboven’s characteristic u-lines and the cursive dedication: “Dear Nancy, this is my writing to you, you and Bob in my mind - wordless. Nancy, love, Hanne.” 

Little is known about Holt and Darboven’s relationship, other than that they moved in the same artistic circles in New York City during the late 1960s. In distinctive ways both artists paid attention to the systems we use to attempt to understand the imponderables of time and space. The title of this focused presentation is Time goes on and remains, echoing Holt’s own words from 1978, while pointing to Holt and Darboven’s shared interest in seriality and duration. The selection spans large-scale installations, photographic series, and works on paper.

Read more about this partnership in an article by Melanie Gerlis in Financial Times.

Nancy Holt framed by the Holes of Light installation at LoGiudice Gallery, New York, 1973

Photograph: Richard Landry
© Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

Archived News

Florida Friday Films

In May of 1971 Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt returned to Florida to visit the Florida Keys, with Smithson seeking potential locations for his Island Maze and Forking Island. While these hypothetical earthworks exist today solely through Smithson's drawings, on this trip Smithson did plant an earthwork he called Mangrove Ring—which is also the subject of a short film of the same name by Nancy Holt.