Thursday Thoughts: Series One

In May of 2025 we shared our first series of Thursday Thoughts—a weekly series publishing interviews with Robert Smithson or Nancy Holt to our website. Interviews with Holt and Smithson provide a distinct vantage into their artistic process and the evolution of their thoughts throughout time.

Thursday Thoughts: Series One

Robert Smithson with William C. Lipke "Fragments of a Conversation" (1968)

This interview between Smithson and William C. Lipke (Professor of Art History at Cornell University) took place on the occasion of the 1969 Earth Art exhibition at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Nancy Holt with Scott Gutterman "Oral History Interview for the Archives of American Art" (1992)

Holt's interview with Scott Gutterman for the Archives of American Art covers numerous topics: Holt's childhood, her early career as an artist in New York City, and her System Works.

Robert Smithson with Alison Sky, "Entropy Made Visible" (1973)

Published in On Site #4, 1973, this interview with Alison Sky took place about two months before Smithson’s death. Although published posthumously, Smithson and Sky completed the editing of the text together.

Nancy Holt with Joan Marter, "Systems: A Conversation with Nancy Holt" (2013)

This interview published in Sculpture Magazine between Nancy Holt and Joan Marter focuses on Holt's System Works and public sculptures.

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