Nancy Holt's Electrical System Prototype

Nancy Holt: Circles of Light at Gropius Bau, Berlin

Holt/Smithson Foundation and Gropius Bau are pleased to announce the most comprehensive presentation of Nancy Holt in Germany to date. Taking a journey through Holt’s output, starting with her first artwork made in 1966, Circles of Light expands over the Gropius Bau’s ground floor and atrium. Paying attention to Holt’s experimental approach to the interplay between the immaterial and the material, this exhibition underscores the singularity of Holt’s oeuvre.

Exploring her use of language and voice, her attention to ecology and resources and her collaborative working methods, Circles of Light demonstrates Holt’s anticipation of present-day questions concerning our role within the exploitation of the natural landscape and the questioning of humankind’s place in the environment. Holt’s interest in bridging art with science and material with perception unfolded into a unique practice, exploring the poetics of space, the built and natural landscape, and our role within the cosmos. The Gropius Bau’s historic atrium is illuminated by Electrical System (1982), a work never shown before at this scale. This immersive installation was the first of her System Works that explore infrastructures of power, manifesting Holt’s interest in revealing the internal ‘organs’ of everyday technological structures.

Opening near the vernal equinox on March 22, 2024, Nancy Holt: Circles of Light is on view at Gropius Bau through July 21, 2024.

Learn more about the exhibition.

Prototype for Nancy Holt's Electrical System (1982) at Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2024
Photograph: Luis Kürschner
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Archived News

Spiral Jetty projected at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin

Smithson's Spiral Jetty film on view at Neue Nationalgalerie

We are happy to share that Robert Smithson's film Spiral Jetty (1970) is currently on view at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany. This marks the first time that the recently completed high-resolution scan of Spiral Jetty has been shown in Europe. The film was digitized from the original 16mm film in 2024 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, following the gift of this material by Holt/Smithson Foundation. 

A network of hot water pipes in an exhibition space

Nancy Holt: Power Systems opens at the Wex

We are delighted to announce that Nancy Holt: Power Systems is now on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus Ohio. The solo exhibition features the most extensive inquiry to date into Nancy Holt's studies of systems, focusing on her interactive site-responsive sculptural installations that expose the basic technological systems found in the built environment.