Wednesday Writings

We are excited to share our latest digital program: Wednesday Writings.

Every Wednesday through July and August we will be publishing a text from Nancy Holt or Robert Smithson to the Holt/Smithson Foundation website.⁠⁠

Holt and Smithson's writings provide an unparalleled vantage into the concepts, processes, and thoughts that guided their artwork. Both artists wrote extensively and had their writings published in art publications such as ArtforumStudio International, Arts Magazine, and Avalanche. 

During Chapter One of our Wednesday Writings series, the Smithson writings we are publishing relate to the current exhibition Robert Smithson:Abstract Cartography at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

The selection of Holt’s writings focus on works that current Research Fellows are studying, such as Hydra’s Head (1974) and Catch Basin (1982). These writings and others also relate to Holt’s System Works, one of which can be seen in the current exhibition Light and Language at Lismore Castle Arts.

Wednesday Writings Chapter One Schedule:

Robert Smithson, Aerial Art (1969)

Nancy Holt, Hydra’s Head (1974)

Robert Smithson, Towards the Development of an Air Terminal Site (1967)

Nancy Holt, Dark Star Park (1984)

Robert Smithson, A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects (1968)

Nancy Holt, Ventilation Series (1992)

Robert Smithson, Entropy and the New Monuments (1966)

Nancy Holt, Catch Basin (1982)

Archived News

Florida Friday Films

In May of 1971 Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt returned to Florida to visit the Florida Keys, with Smithson seeking potential locations for his Island Maze and Forking Island. While these hypothetical earthworks exist today solely through Smithson's drawings, on this trip Smithson did plant an earthwork he called Mangrove Ring—which is also the subject of a short film of the same name by Nancy Holt.