Nancy Holt / Inside Outside launches at MACBA on July 12

This summer the exhibition Nancy Holt / Inside Outside launches at MACBA, Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Opening on July 12, 2023 this major survey is on show through January 7, 2024.

The exhibition launches on Wednesday July 12 at 8pm, preceded by a conversation at 7pm between Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation and Teresa Grandas, curator at MACBA.

The provocations of ‘inside and outside’ guide this exhibition. Across five decades, she observes and unravels these perceptual demarcations, asking questions of what remains open and exposed in the exterior, and what remains concealed inside, out of sight. Her spatial and visual poetry invites us to recognize the hidden systems that structure our ways of experiencing and perceiving the world.  The work of Holt constitutes an invitation to pause, attentively observe, and reflect on the concrete world in transformation.

The exhibition and publication Nancy Holt / Inside Outside was initiated by Bildmuseet, Umeå University. The MACBA presentation is accompanied by a detailed catalogue, the first major publication on her work in Spanish. Learn more about the exhibition here.

Nancy Holt, Miami Puddles [detail] (1969)
Twenty-two inkjet prints on archival rag paper from original 126 format transparencies
18 x 18 in. (45.7 x 45.7 cm) each
Edition of 3 + 1AP
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Archived News

Nancy Holt's Starfire acquired by Powder Art Foundation

We are very pleased to share Nancy Holt’s 1986 sculpture "Starfire" has found a permanent home in the collection of Powder Art Foundation in Eden, Utah. Powder Art Foundation is an outdoor art museum that works closely with Dia Art Foundation. "Starfire" comprises eight pits arranged to mirror the Big Dipper constellation and the North Star. The flames create a terrestrial map of the night sky, bringing the energy of distant stars down to earth.

Holt artworks in "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Light was a constant source of fascination for Nancy Holt throughout her four decades of artmaking. Whether drawn from the stars or powered by electricity, she approached light as a phenomenon, an idea, and a material in itself. Three of her pivotal works investigating the perceptual qualities of light are featured in the exhibition "All Light: Light and Space yesterday and today" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany.

Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson

In 1968 Robert Smithson declared: “A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance.” On show until January 20, "Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson" at Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles takes him at his word and invites eighteen artists to join Smithson on the floor as partners who resist, improvise, and extend the rhythm of his thinking.

Holt's "Locators with Loci" on view in "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce

Nancy Holt's 1972 sculpture "Locators with Loci" is on view in the exhibition "Minimal" at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris until January 18, 2026. Curated by Jessica Morgan, Director of Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition traces the scope Minimal Arr through over a hundred works by some forty international artists.

Joan Jonas: An Island Departure at the Farnsworth Art Museum

"Joan Jonas: An Island Departure, with Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson"  is currently on show at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine through to March 1, 2026. This special collaboration is part of our on-ongoing series of projects with artists working today.

Robert Smithson in Europe at Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany

"Robert Smithson in Europe" is currently on show at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop,  Germany, until February 22, 2026. The exhibition brings together Robert Smithson’s artistic production in the Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, and Germany, with a special focus on North Rhine-Westphalia, the region local to the city of Bottrop.