Made in 1972, Vision Fixed is a concrete poem that takes the form of a typescript. It begins with lines listing various qualities of vison: “Vision Fixed / Vision Concentrated / Vision Demarcated / Vision Located / Vision Concretized / Vision Re-focused / Vision Circumscribed.” The sixteen lines resonate with her Locators, sculptures that define vision through a circle, drawing attention to the processes of seeing, and with the careful framing of vision in her photoworks.

This is one of two photocollages made by Nancy Holt in which she places black paper over photographs of locations in New York City, restricting the image so that it is viewed through a circle. The image depicts 276 Bowery, a building on the west side of the street between East Houston and Stanton Streets, at the southern edge of the East Village. In the early 1970s, the Bowery was associated with marginal urban life and rapid change, making it a site through which Holt could focus attention on overlooked or transitional areas of the city.