"Nancy Holt: Between Heaven and Earth" at Western Washington University

This week the exhibition Nancy Holt: Between Heaven and Earth launches at the Western Gallery at Western Washington University, the location of Nancy Holt’s Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78).

Between Heaven and Earth follows the development of Holt’s ideas that led her to create Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings. This trans-disciplinary exhibition addresses both the complexities of Holt’s artwork and her interests in geology, biology, ecology, surveying technology and astronomy.

The selection of artworks incorporates several important formational works for Holt, which are on loan from Holt/Smithson Foundation’s collection. Alongside drawings of Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings are a selection of early concrete poems, the photographic series Light and Shadow Photo Drawings, the composite photowork Old Sarum Ruins illustrated above, and examples of her Locators from 1972.  The Locators play an important role: these early lens-less sighting devices set the visual syntax that informs Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings and demonstrate her career-long interest in visual perception and the interconnectedness between directional awareness and how we locate ourselves within a physical place.

Nancy Holt, Between Heaven and Earth is curated by Professor Barbara Miller, who contributed to the Foundation’s Scholarly Text series with an essay on Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings, and is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation. The exhibition is open January 14 - May 7, 2022.

Nancy Holt, Old Sarum Ruins (1969)

Composite of 4 photographs from 126 format transparencies printed in 2012 

23 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (60.5 x 60.5 x 4 cm)

Edition of 5 +1AP

Archived News

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.

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