close up shot of a mangrove plant with dark leaves and a stem extending down into the blue ocean water

Weekend Screening: Nancy Holt's "Mangrove Ring"

November 20, 2020

This weekend we continue with the second screening in our second season of Friday Films: Nancy Holt’s Mangrove Ring (1971).

Mangrove Ring features a sculpture Smithson created in the ocean using mangrove seedlings while traveling in Florida. Off the coast of Summerland Key Smithson planted a ring of mangroves with the intent to grow an island over a three-year period. To learn more about Mangrove Ring and Smithson’s interest in islands, watch the introduction to the film by our Executive Director Lisa Le Feuvre and visit the Robert Smithson Online Viewing Room on the Marian Goodman Gallery website.

Mangrove Ring will be available on Vimeo and InstagramTV from 12 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday, November 20 through to 12 p.m. Mountain Time on Monday, November 23.

Mangrove Ring is one of the five films included in the solo exhibition Hypothetical Islands at Marian Goodman Gallery London, which is the first solo exhibition of Smithson’s work in the UK. While in person-viewing of this exhibition is currently suspended in compliance with the national mandate in the UK, we will be screening one of the five films on view in the exhibition online every weekend throughout the end of the year. ⁠View the full schedule here.

We will be taking a break from the Friday Film Program for the Thanksgiving holiday next week. We hope you join us the following week to watch The Making of Amarillo Ramp (1973/2013), a film made by Nancy Holt that documents the completion of Smithson’s final earthwork.

Still from Nancy Holt, "Mangrove Ring" (1971)

Digitized 16 mm film

Color, silent

Duration: 2 minutes 57 seconds

Archived News

Nancy Holt in "10 Years LA!"

May 11, 2026

Opening May 15, Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers present in their Los Angeles gallery 10 Years LA!, an exhibition celebrating the gallery’s decade-long presence in Los Angeles. The exhibition is on show through August 8, 2026.

A close up of a golden sunrise through Holt's Sun Tunnels.

Film screening at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles

April 2, 2026

On the occasion of the exhibition Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, we are pleased to present a special screening event.

Holt's "Sky Mound" drawings in "Waste" at Museum Ostwall

March 25, 2026

Museum Ostwall at the Dortmunder U presents the exhibition Waste. An exhibition about the global routes of rubbish, which features works by Nancy Holt relating to her unfinished project Sky Mound (1984-). Waste is on view through July 26, 2026.

an artist working on a large drawing on the floor of their studio

Matt Mullican at Archives of American Art: 2026 Holt/Smithson Foundation Annual Lecture

February 27, 2026

We are very pleased to share details of the 2026 Holt/Smithson Foundation Annual Lecture. Our guest speaker is artist Matt Mullican, and our partner for the fifth event in the series is the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.

"Nancy Holt: MoonSunStarEarthSkyWater" at Goodwood Art Foundation

February 20, 2026

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.

Films by Holt and Smithson on view at The Museum of Modern Art

February 18, 2026

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.