Nancy Holt, Old Sarum Ruins (1969)

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

23 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (60.5 x 60.5 cm)

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

four images of a ruin

Nancy Holt, Old Sarum Ruins (1969)

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

23 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (60.5 x 60.5 cm)

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

1966—1969

Old Sarum Ruins 

Nancy Holt
1969
Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 126 format transparencies
23 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (60.5 x 60.5 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Nancy Holt’s Old Sarum Ruins was made in 1969 at the site of Old Sarum on Salisbury Plain in the United Kingdom. The work combines four views of an ancient earthwork—an Iron Age hillfort formed around 400 BCE and subsequently reworked through Roman and medieval occupation. The composite of four photographs, formed by the artist from 126-format transparencies, was made during Holt’s travels with Robert Smithson through England and Wales in 1969, when they sought out places—both ancient ruins and constructed landscapes—that resonated with their developing ideas about time, site, and the persistence of human marking on the land. Old Sarum Ruins forms part of Holt’s sustained investigation into how remnants, erosion, and layered histories shape perception, evident in photographic works such as Western Graveyards (1968) and Ruin View (1969).

I’ve had a long-lasting interest in archaeological sites. Old Sarum is an awesome place. We saw land forms, especially the banks and ditches, which functioned for a culture that existed more than 3,000 years ago. You can feel the layers of human history as you stand on the ancient ruins. 

Nancy Holt in Conversation with Simon Grant

Grant, Simon, and Nancy Holt. 2012. “Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson in England, 1969: Notes from an Ancient Island.” Tate Etc., no. 25 (Summer 2012). Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-25-summer-2012/nancy-holt-and-robert-smithson-england-1969. 

Related Info

1966—1969
a view through a Mayan temple
Ruin View: The Temple of the Sun
Nancy Holt
1969
1966—1969

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.

1966—1969
stone ruin tour
Stone Ruin Tour
Nancy Holt
1967
1966—1969

In 1966 Nancy Holt made her first artworks, taking the form of concrete poems. One year later she created Stone Ruin Tour, extending her exploration of language from the page to the landscape and marking her first experiments with sound.

 In June 1967, Holt tape-recorded herself dictating a tour through a crumbling labyrinthine garden with stone walls, overlooks, and disappearing stairways in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. This she transcribed to create an imperfect and unfinished map to explore the site, which was given to artist friends as a guide. 

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