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"

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

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York; distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York

Archived News

poster for Smithson's film Spiral Jetty 1970 cropped

Soft Network Benefit Auction

We are pleased to participate in the Soft Network Benefit Auction, open on Artsy from September 23 until October 7, 2026. The auction brings together works in support of Soft Network and the Artist Foundations and Estate Leaders List (AFELL), an international network for artists and stewards of artists’ estates and legacies. Holt/Smithson Foundation has donated two rare works of art by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson to the auction to help further this goal. 

Nancy Holt's "Starfire" (1986) as installed at the Powder Art Foundation, Utah, 2025

“Starfire” at Powder Art Foundation Fall Open Day and Utah Museum of Fine Arts Land Art Week

On October 2, from 11 am to 3 pm, Powder Art Foundation will host a Fall Open House at Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah where Nancy Holt’s Starfire (1986) can be experienced. Starfire joined the collection of Powder Art Foundation last year. The sculpture comprises eight fire pits arranged in the configuration of the Big Dipper and the North Star, bringing the sky down to earth.

images of a artwork formed of language

Portuguese translation of Smithson's "Strata: A Geophotographic Fiction"

We are pleased to share our collaboration with the São Paulo–based Robert Smithson scholar and professor Antônio Ewbank and publisher Editora Ébria, presenting the first Portuguese translation of the text of Robert Smithson's Strata: A Geophotographic Fiction (1970). Strata: A Geophotographic Fiction is a four-part fold-out work created by Smithson for Aspen Magazine No. 8: The Fluxus Issue, guest edited by Dan Graham and designed by George Maciunas.

A Locator looking to a mirror

Nancy Holt in "10 Years LA!"

From May to August 2026, Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers presented 1 0 Years LA!,at their Los Angeles gallery, an exhibition celebrating the gallery's decade-long presence in the city.