Tour of the John Weber Gallery
Nancy Holt
1972
John Weber Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Instructions and portable tape recorder
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Between 1967 and 1979 Holt made several audio works. These are sonic analogs to the Locators that she described as being “poems in place.” Tour of the John Weber Gallery is Nancy Holt’s first publicly exhibited tour, made for the eponymous gallery which opened in 1971 in SoHo, New York City. Wall signage directed participants to use an earphone and tape recorder to follow the tour one at a time. Holt described the work as a “tour where you looked closely at the environment, at all the cracks and the stains on the floor, and looked out the window at certain things like chimneys, flues, brick walls, etc., and also looked at the other art in the gallery, including my East-West Locators, without giving any special emphasis because they were art.” Holt’s decision to address the other works in the gallery is a fascinating gesture that not only gives her a voice within the experience of the show, but also questions — and even poeticizes — notions of authorship, interpretation, and the whole framework for viewing art.
