"Nancy Holt: MoonSunStarEarthSkyWater" at Goodwood Art Foundation
On show until November 2026, Goodwood Art Foundation in southern England presents Nancy Holt: MoonSunStarEarthSkyWater. The exhibition forms part of Goodwood’s annual summer program, spanning its two galleries and 70-acre landscape, which features wooded glades, ancient woodland, and meadowland.
Drawing from astronomy and geology, Holt expanded how art interacts with the landscape and anticipated later ecological concerns. Her practice linked human experience to larger natural and cosmic systems, often using sunlight, shadows, and constellations to make viewers conscious of their position in space and time. Holt’s integration of art and the natural environment resonates with Goodwood’s founding principles. Her exhibition at Goodwood Art Foundation marks her first and most substantial presentation in the UK to date.
The exhibition is titled after a 1969 concrete poem by Holt and features key works, including Mirrors of Light II (1974); Ventilation System (1985–1992); three 1969 photoworks made in the UK, Trail Markers, Wistman’s Wood and Old Sarum Ruins; and the first posthumous presentation of the 1974 outdoor sculpture Hydra’s Head.
Nancy Holt at Dartmoor National Park, UK in 1969
Photograph: Robert Smithson
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
