Nancy Holt's "Sun Tunnels" film on view at Centre de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira, Portugal

Nancy Holt's 1978 film Sun Tunnels  is currently on view in the exhibition Feixe de Luz: Escultura Projetada, Cinema Exposto at the Centro de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira, Portugal.

The exhibition's title translates to "Light Beam: Projected Sculpture, Exposed Cinema."

From Centro de Arte Oliva:
"Devoted to the formal and conceptual relations between cinema and sculpture, Light Beam: Projected Sculpture, Exposed Cinema, unveils a century of dialogue between the two arts and a mutual process of profound transformation, which has unfolded and became more complex throughout the 20th century to the present day. Film as a document that becomes a work of art, film as a possibility of staging and rendering sculpture performative, film as a possibility of combining opposites (material/immaterial; shadow/light; volume/ projection; ephemeral/perpetual), but also sculpture as an image-producing device are aspects that run through the exhibition."

The exhibition includes artwork by Babette Mangolte, Constantin Brancusi, Fischli & Weiss, Francisco Tropa, Hollis Frampton, João Maria Gusmão, Pedro Paiva, Lis Rhodes, Mark Leckey, Mary Ellen Bute, Nancy Holt, and Susanne Themlitz.⁠

Feixe de Luz: Escultura Projetada, Cinema Exposto is curated by Andreia Magalhães. 

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1978)
Installation view: Feixe de Luz: Escultura Projetada, Cinema Exposto, Centro de Arte Oliva, São João da Madeira, Portugal, 2022
16 mm film on HD video
Color, sound
Duration: 26 minutes, 31 seconds
Photograph: Dinis Santos
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York

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