Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows (1976)
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 126 format transparencies
61 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (156.2 x 130.8 cm)
Edition of 5 + 1AP

A composite of 30 images showing shifting shadows inside one of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows (1976)
Installation view: Extreme Tension: Art between Politics and Society, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2023-2024
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 126 format transparencies
61 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (156.2 x 130.8 cm)
Edition of 5 + 1AP

Photograph: Lisa Le Feuvre, 2023
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

An installation view of Nancy Holts Sun Tunnels Shifting Shadows photowork

Photograph: Lisa Le Feuvre, 2023
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows [detail] (1976)
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 126 format transparencies
61 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (156.2 x 130.8 cm)
Edition of 5 + 1AP

Photograph: Lisa Le Feuvre, 2023
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

1973—1976

Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows

Nancy Holt

1976

Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 126 format transparencies

61 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (156.2 x 130.8 cm)

Edition of 5 + 1AP

Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows is a photographic artwork depicting the shifting patterns of light and shadow over the course of one long summer day in one tunnel of Nancy Holt’s landmark earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973-76), located in Utah’s Great Basin Desert. The sculpture comprises four concrete structures arranged in a cross formation, positioned to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the solstices. The composite of thirty photographs captures the changing light conditions photographed by Holt at regular intervals over the course of one day; capturing the movement of the sun through the shadow's journey from one side of the tunnel to the other, eventually capturing the artist’s own shadow and marking her presence. This photographic artwork makes material Holt’s desire to bring the stars down to earth, with the perforations in the surface of the tunnels mapping out star constellations, bringing the sunlight to the ground in an echo of the celestial pattern above. Holt captured this series of photographs in July 1976 shortly after the completion of Sun Tunnels, and along with this work she also shot the photographic composites Sun Tunnels: Sunrise and Sunlight in Sun Tunnels.

Writing

Writing by the Artist

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.

Scholarly Text

black and white, four sun tunnels with a person standing looking through one

Everything and Nothing: On Nancy Holt’s "Sun Tunnels" (1973–76)

Julian Myers-Szupinska

Let me tell you some things I like about Earthworks. I use the designation “Earthworks” advisedly. Holt referred to her work as “Land Art,” seeing the quasi-genre of Earth Art and Earthworks as belonging to an earlier group of male artists, despite them also being her contemporaries, peers, and fellow travelers.

In the glare of the desert sunlight, I want to turn away from the sun, rather than contemplate it. When the sunlight is all around me like that, I only become conscious of it when it is edged by shadow. The sunlight pours in wherever there are holes in the tunnels. Because of the seven- and-a-quarter-inch thickness of the holes, the shape of the light that reaches the bottom of the tunnels is usually a pointed ellipse, but there are times when the sun is directly over a hole and a perfect circle is cast. Day is turned into night, and an inversion of the sky takes place: stars are cast down to Earth, spots of warmth in cool tunnels.

Nancy Holt

"Sun Tunnels." Artforum Vol.15, No.8 (April, 1977).

Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows

Writing

Sun Tunnels

Everything and Nothing: On Nancy Holt’s "Sun Tunnels" (1973–76)

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