Ventilation System

Nancy Holt
1985-1992
Steel ducts, turbine ventilators, shanty caps, fans, air [materials are locally sourced with each presentation]
Overall dimensions variable [site responsive] 

Ventilation System is a site-responsive installation built of standard ventilation materials that are locally sourced. Part of a series of System Works that Holt began in 1981, with an aim to expose the rudiments of technology upon which humans rely, Ventilation System draws attention to the infrastructure that is omnipresent but often invisible in the built environment. The structure is functional, outfitted with spinning fans and turbine ventilators, yet unnecessary. Holt brings a playfulness to the industrial connotation of the work, leaving space for deeper musings on energy, utility, and earth’s resources.

Holt presented four iterations of Ventilation System during her lifetime. In 2022 Holt/Smithson Foundation exhibited the first posthumous presentation of the work in the exhibition Nancy Holt / Inside Outside at Bildmuseet.

Writing

Writing by the Artist

Ventilation Series

Nancy Holt
Made of the standard materials of each system – plumbing, electricity, drainage, heating, gas, and ventilation – the sculpture are functional; the electrical systems light, the heating systems heat, the drainage systems drain, the ventilation systems circulate the air, and so on. Since the sculptures are exposed fragments of vast, hidden networks, they are part of open-ended systems, part of the world. Over the years these technological systems have become necessary for our everyday existence, yet they are usually hidden behind walls or beneath the earth and relegated to the realm of the unconscious. We have trouble owning up to our almost total dependence on them.
Scholarly Text

Articulations of Air: the pneumatic aesthetics of Nancy Holt’s "Ventilation System"

Nina Miall
First conceived in 1985, Ventilation System belongs to Holt’s System Works, a body of site-specific artworks that externalize the hidden technological infrastructure we rely upon for our everyday existence. Usually found underground, above the ceiling, within the interstitial spaces of buildings or, as Holt remarks, “relegated to the realm of the unconscious,” these conduit systems are brought out into plain sight by the artist, who seeks to make a virtue of their humble operation.
Scholarly Text

Nancy Holt’s "Ventilation System" (1985–1992)

Mariana Cánepa Luna

First conceived in 1985, Nancy Holt’s Ventilation System is a site-responsive installation in which interconnected industrial-scale stainless steel ducts channel airflow in and out of a gallery space. Holt’s intention for the work was for it “to be practical yet playful, functional yet not really necessary, a part of the architecture yet part of the outdoor environment as well”1  and such dualities are key to understanding the work’s tone.

Scholarly Text

“We live in a world of steel mandalas” — Nancy Holt’s "Electrical Lighting for Reading Room"

Clara Meister

A defined interior space with white walls contains an arched network of steel pipes that undulates along three walls of the room. Each connection point of the protruding network is marked by twenty standard white ceramic sockets that holds a lightbulb, protected by a metal cage. From the bottom row of ten lightbulbs dangle chains, which can be pulled to turn them on and off. Below the grid is a continuous low bench for sitting.

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