Nancy Holt, Sunlight in Sun Tunnels (1976)

Archival inkjet print, reproduced from original 35mm color transparencies

Thirty photographs of sunlight and shadow in one sun tunnel photographed every half hour 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on July 14, 1976.

50 1/8 x 61 ½ in. (127.3 x 156.2 cm)

Edition of 5 + 1 AP

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

These thirty photographs document the sun’s movement from inside one of the tunnels, every half hour from 6:30 am to 9:00 pm on July 14, 1976.

Nancy Holt, Sunlight in Sun Tunnels (1976)

Archival inkjet print, reproduced from original 35mm color transparencies

Thirty photographs of sunlight and shadow in one sun tunnel photographed every half hour 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on July 14, 1976.

50 1/8 x 61 ½ in. (127.3 x 156.2 cm)

Edition of 5 + 1 AP

© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

1973—1976

Sunlight in Sun Tunnels

Nancy Holt
July 14, 1976
Sun Tunnels, Lucin, Utah
Archival Inkjet print
50 x 61 ½ in. (127 x 156 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

On July 14, 1976 Nancy Holt charted the evolving light and shadow falling to the interior space of one of the cylinders forming her landmark earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973-76). Every half hour, between 6:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., she meticulously used her camera to fix the ever-changing rise and set of the sun, bringing together this fifteen hour process into a single composite photograph. Sunlight in Sun Tunnels makes material Holt’s wish to bring the stars down to earth; the perforations in the surface of the tunnel map out star constellations, the holes bringing the sunlight to the ground in an echo of the celestial pattern above. July 1976 marked the completion of Sun Tunnels and, along with this work, Holt created the photographic series Sun Tunnels: Sunrise and Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows.

Writing

Writings by Nancy Holt
Cover of Artforum magazine with black logo in top left and image of circular concrete tunnels with sun setting in background.

Sun Tunnels

Nancy Holt

Sun Tunnels, 1973–76, is built on forty acres, which I bought in 1974 specifically as a site for the work. The land is in the Great Basin Desert in northwestern Utah, about four miles southeast of Lucin (pop. ten) and nine miles east of the Nevada border.

Sun Tunnels marks the yearly extreme positions of the sun on the horizon—the tunnels being aligned with the angles of the rising and setting of the sun on the days of the solstices, around June 21st and December 21st. On those days the sun is centered through the tunnels, and is nearly center for about ten days before and after the solstices.

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Related Info

1973—1976
Golden dawn through a Sun TUnnel.
Sun Tunnels
Nancy Holt
1973-76
1973—1976

In a remote valley of Utah’s Great Basin Desert, Holt’s massive ​Sun Tunnels ​looms along the horizon, visible from over a mile away. The four concrete structures are arranged in a cross formation, positioned precisely to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes are configured in the concrete to cast projections of constellations along the tunnels’ interior; Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn materialize out of sunlight, their patterns illuminated upon the viewer inside.

1973—1976
forthcoming
Preparatory Drawing of "Sun Tunnels"
Nancy Holt
1975
1973—1976

Twelve photographs of the horizon line correspond to twelve separate angles of sight, a foreshadowing of what will be the views from Holt’s majestic earthwork, ​Sun Tunnels. The photographs are mounted on paper and demarcated with cardinal direction, as well as the geographical landmarks featured within them. The drawing is both a preparatory tool and an allusion to Holt’s conceptual meditations; the lines radiating from the center suggest an infinite path of sight, while the photographs fragment the view, limiting us to a constructed experience of the landscape.