Nancy Holt, Untitled drawing for Locators (ca. 1971-1972)
Chalk on blackboard
20 x 30 x 2 in. (50.8 x 72.2 x 5.1 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt, Untitled drawing for Locators (ca. 1971-1972)
Chalk on blackboard
20 x 30 x 2 in. (50.8 x 72.2 x 5.1 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt, Untitled drawing for Locators (detail. ca. 1971-72)
Chalk on blackboard
20 x 30 x 2 in. (50.8 x 72.2 x 5.1 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt, Untitled drawing for Locators (detail. ca. 1971-72)
Chalk on blackboard
20 x 30 x 2 in. (50.8 x 72.2 x 5.1 cm)
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
Nancy Holt maintained a continuous practice of drawing, testing, and thinking through ideas on the page for her indoor and outdoor sculptures. She made several pencil drawings for Locator sculptures, as well as this one chalkboard drawing. Showing four Locators looking to Loci, it does not correspond to a specific realized Locator sculpture, suggesting it functioned for her more as a conceptual exploration than as a proposal for a built work.
In 1972 Nancy Holt also expanded her visual language in her Locators through the use of mirrors and what she called “Loci”—painted ellipses that resolve into perfect black circles edged with a ring of light when looking through the Locators.
In 1971, Nancy Holt created the first of her Locators, sculptural “seeing devices” that draw attention to visual perception and place. Dual Locators is a sculpture intended to be looked through in two directions: toward a mirror mounted on one wall and toward a black circle painted on the opposite wall, the Locus.
