Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows) [detail] (1971)

Installation view: artist's Greenwich Street studio, New York

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Peter Moore

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

an image looking through a Locator at two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows) [detail] (1971)

Installation view: artist's Greenwich Street studio, New York

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Peter Moore

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: artist's Greenwich Street studio, New York

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Peter Moore

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

image of a Locator in a window

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: artist's Greenwich Street studio, New York

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Peter Moore

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

A Locator looking to two windows

Nancy Holt, Locator (Two Windows)  (1971)

Installation view: Art Institute of Chicago, 2024

Steel pipe

42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)

Photograph: Jonathan Mathias

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

1970—1972

Locator (Two Windows)

Nancy Holt
1971
Steel pipe
Locator: 42 x 12 x 2 in. (106.7 x 30.5 x 5 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Locator (Two Windows) is one of the earliest works Nancy Holt created in her Locator series. Positioned on a windowsill in Holt’s New York studio, a steel Locator frames a view of two windows. The sculpture focuses vision and draws attention to a singular detail within the surrounding urban environment. Looking through the circular aperture, one’s perception becomes more acute.

Holt’s Studio Locators focus on particular details, and when presented today their placement echoes her careful positioning of vision. Locator (Two Windows) always provides the view indicated in its title. In 2024, the work was presented at the Art Institute of Chicago, where the Locator was positioned inside the museum looking out toward a pair of windows.

Writing

I woke up one morning, and I went to a welding place, and I made some of these Locator pieces, and it was like overnight I had produced some physical objects, and yet they weren’t things that you looked at, but they were things you looked through. And this was very satisfying to me. It was like I wasn't creating anything, and yet I was creating something in order to have a void.

Nancy Holt, 1972

Oral History Interview with Nancy Holt conducted by Scott Gutterman for the Archives of American Art in 1992

Related Info

1970—1972
black background with a black and white circle in the center that displays an exhaust pipe
Locator (Exhaust Pipe)
Nancy Holt
1971
1970—1972

Locator (Exhaust Pipe) was one of the earliest works Nancy Holt created in her Locator series. Directed out of a window in Holt’s New York studio, the view from this Locator features an exhaust pipe, perfectly encompassed by the aperture. The illuminated circular opening of the pipe is reiterated in the circular outline of the Locator view; both create tunnels of vision, holding light within their shapes. Holt's fascination with perception and vision are embodied in this simple intervention in her studio.

1970—1972
black background with a black and white circle in the center that displays a cracked window.
Locator (Cracked Window)
Nancy Holt
1971
1970—1972

Locator (Cracked Window) was one of the earliest works Nancy Holt created in her Locator series. Positioned by a window in Holt’s New York studio, a steel Locator captures a view of the cracked window on the slanted glass ceiling below. The crack forms a circle with radial slivers protruding outwards, a sun-like shape similar to those featured in Holt’s public artworks. The circular shape of the crack is accentuated by the circular framing of the Locator’s view, casting an aesthetic light onto an ordinarily unfavorable slice of city life.

See Also