Smithson Inspired Sci-fi & Horror Film Series at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe

Join us this weekend at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a special film series inspired by Robert Smithson. As an artist Smithson was fascinated and inspired by popular culture, science fiction, and film, and these influences can be seen throughout his writings and artworks. 

This program presented in collaboration with the New Mexico Museum of Art features three horror / sci-fi films that Smithson loved: War of the Worlds (1953), The Blob (1958), and Vertigo (1958).

At the opening of each screening a short clip featuring Mark White, Executive Director of the New Mexico Museum of Art, and Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation, will introduce the film series and contextualize Smithson’s interest in these three films.

Schedule

Friday November 1 
3:30pm—The Blob
5:30pm—The War of the Worlds
7:30pm—Vertigo

Saturday, November 2 
3:00pm—The War of the Worlds
5:00pm—Vertigo
8:00pm—The Blob

Sunday November 3 
3:00pm—Vertigo
6:00pm—The Blob
8:00pm—The War of the Worlds

Location:
Jean Cocteau Cinema
418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe, NM 87501

Purchase tickets online or at the door. We hope to see you at the movies this weekend! 

Robert Smithson Smithson reflected in his 1965 sculpture Enantiomorphic Chambers
Photograph: Nancy Holt
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, 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

"Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles

What does it mean to notice how we see? "Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics" at the MAK Center at the Schindler House in Los Angeles offers an encounter where art and architecture shape perception together. This exhibition to brings Holt’s work into a responsive dialogue with the Schindler House, inviting visitors to experience art and architecture as partners in seeing.

Nancy Holt concrete poem on show in Paris at Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles

Nancy Holt started making art in 1966, and her first works took the form of concrete poems: artworks testing the structure, content, and form of language. A key concrete poem, "The World Though a Circle," from 1972 is currently on show in the exhibition Deep Fields at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris until March 23, 2026.