Nancy Holt, Ruin View: The Temple of the Sun (1969)
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; made by the artist from original 126 format transparency in 2012
22 x 22 in. (55.9 x 55.9 cm)
Edition of 5
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt, Ruin View: The Temple of the Sun (1969)
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; made by the artist from original 126 format transparency in 2012
22 x 22 in. (55.9 x 55.9 cm)
Edition of 5
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Ruin View: The Temple of the Sun was made in 1969, when Nancy Holt travelled to Mexico with Robert Smithson and the gallerist and collector Virginia Dwan. During this trip, Holt visited the Maya site of Palenque, where she encountered the alignment of architecture with the sun. Anticipating her later Locator works, Holt carefully frames vision, emphasizing the viewer’s embodied act of looking rather than the monumentality of the site itself, using a photographic framing device that channels and focuses vision through a fixed aperture.
Holt's "Concrete Poem" (1968) shows theater-marquis letters that have been seemingly scattered on concrete steps. It was taken in Las Vegas, Nevada on Holt’s first trip to the desert of the American West.
"Concrete Visions" (1967) is one of Nancy Holt’s first photographic works. It was taken in New Jersey, the state where she grew up and where she would return frequently to develop her artworks. Made while she was developing her concrete poems, the title is both metaphoric and material.
