Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project: Astral Grating (1982)
Graphite pencil on paper
18 × 23 3/4 in (45.7 × 60.3 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project: Astral Grating (1982)
Graphite pencil on paper
18 × 23 3/4 in (45.7 × 60.3 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project: Astral Grating (c. 1987)
Graphite pencil on tracing paper
25 3/4 × 35 3/4 in (65.4 × 90.8 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project: Astral Grating (c. 1987)
Graphite pencil on tracing paper
25 3/4 × 35 3/4 in (65.4 × 90.8 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project (c. 1987)
Graphite pencil on paper
23 7/8 × 17 7/8 in (60.6 × 45.4 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt
Sculpture Project (c. 1987)
Graphite pencil on paper
23 7/8 × 17 7/8 in (60.6 × 45.4 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
In developing her sculpture Astral Grating for New York City’s Art in Transit program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Nancy Holt produced numerous drawings to map out the sculpture, working closely with LHP Architects. These three drawings show her careful planning of scale and site. Drawing was fundamental to Holt’s practice, helping her work through questions of scale, site, and perception before they took material form.
Nancy Holt made Astral Grating for New York City’s Art in Transit program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York.
Throughout her five decades of artmaking, drawing was a fundamental part of Nancy Holt’s creative thinking. One of her most ambitious projects remains in suspension: Sky Mound, begun in 1984. Four miles from Manhattan, between the New Jersey Turnpike and the Amtrak railway, lies a massive landfill. Holt was recruited to design the reclamation of the site, which would both mitigate environmental damage and transform the landfill into a sculptural observatory.
