Nancy Holt
Encyclopedia
Nancy Holt is an American
artist
famous for her public sculpture, installation art
and land art
. Throughout her career, Holt has also produced works in other mediums, including film, photography, and writing artist’s books.
. She spent a great deal of her childhood in New Jersey. She was educated at Tufts University
in Medford, Massachusetts
. Three years after graduating, she married fellow environmental artist Robert Smithson
in 1963. Holt began her artistic career as a photographer and as a video artist. This involvement with photography and camera optics are thought to have influenced her later earthworks, which are “literally seeing devices, fixed points for tracking the positions of the sun, earth and stars.” Today Holt is most widely known for her large-scale environmental works, Sun Tunnels and Dark Star Park. However, she has created site-specific
environmental works in public places all over the world. Holt has contributed to various publications, which have featured both her written articles and photographs. She has also authored several books. Holt has received five National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowships, New York Creative Artist Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship
. She currently works and resides in Galisteo, New Mexico
.
. Land art emerged in the 1960s, coinciding with a growing ecology movement in the United States, which asked people to become more aware of the negative impact they can have on the natural environment. Land art changed the way people thought of art; it took art out of the gallery or museum and into the natural landscape
, the product of which were huge works engaging elements of the environment. Unlike much of the commercialized art during this time period, land art could not be bought or sold on the art market. Thus, it shifted the perspective of how people all over the world viewed art.
Land art was typically created in remote, uninhabited regions of the country, particularly the Southwest. Some attribute this popular location for land art to artists’ need to escape the turmoil in the United States during the 1960s and 70s by turning to the open, uncorrupted land of the West. Holt believes this artistic movement came about in the United States due to the vastness of the American landscape. As a result of earthworks not being easily accessible to the public, documentation in photographs, videos, drawings became imperative to their being seen. The first exhibit of contemporary land art was at the Virginia Dwan Gallery in New York in 1968. Other earth artists who emerged during this time include James Turrell
, Walter De Maria
, Michael Heizer
, and Dennis Oppenheim.
, while not disturbing it. Holt thinks about human scale in relation to the work she creates. People can interact with the works and become more aware of space, of their own visual perception, and of the order of the universe. Holt’s works incorporate the passage of time and also function to keep time. For example, Annual Ring functions so that when sunlight falls through the hole in the dome and fits perfectly into a ring on the ground, it is solar noon on the summer solstice
. At different times, the sun falls differently on the work and other holes in the dome align with celestial occurrences. Holt has said that she is concerned with making art that not only makes an impact visually, but is also functional and necessary in society, as seen in works like Sky Mound, which serves a dual function as a sculpture and park and it also generates alternative energy.
In her works, Holt creates an intimate connection to nature and the stars, saying, "I feel that the need to look at the sky-at the moon and the stars-is very basic, and it is inside all of us. So when I say my work is an exteriorization of my own inner reality, I mean I am giving back to people through art what they already have in them." In other words, Holt is saying that people have within them a basic need to observe the sky and through her works she wants to highlight and make people aware of that need.
in Tampa, Florida
. The work, consists of 20 ft (6.1 m). aluminum poles topped with a swirl of metal called a shadow caster, which casts a circle of light on a central seat when it is solar noon on the day of the summer solstice. On five days a year at different times, the shadow caster is designed to create a circle of light around plaques placed in the ground that mark important events in Florida’s history. Thus, for Solar Rotary, Holt employed Dr. Jack Robinson, an archaeo-astronomer and professor to help her, among other things, to plot the sun’s coordinates for the work. For almost all of Holt’s works, she has had some collaboration. For Dark Star Park, Holt coordinated with developer J.W. Kaempfer, Jr., of the Kaempfer Company, in integrating the design of his adjacent building, Park Place Office Building into her design for the park. She also worked in collaboration with an architect, landscape architect, engineers, and real estate developers on the work. For Rock Rings, Holt searched far and wide to find the right masons to work on the piece and also had local stone called schist, which was 250-million-years old, quarried by hand for the work. Despite all of the collaboration, Holt notes that she is always present for the construction of her artworks.
outside of the ghost town of Lucin, Utah
. The work is a product of Holt’s interest in the great variation of intensity of the sun in the desert compared to the sun in the city. Holt searched for and found a site which was remote and empty.
The work consists of four massive concrete tunnels (18 feet long and nine feet in diameter), which are arranged in an “X” configuration to total a length of 86 feet (26.2 m). Each tunnel reacts differently to the sun, aligned with the sunrise, sunset, or the summer or winter solstice. Someone visiting the site would see the tunnels immediately with their contrast to the fairly undifferentiated desert landscape. Approaching the work, which can be seen one to one-and-a-half miles away, the viewer’s perception of space is questioned as the tunnels change views as a product of their landscape.
The tunnels not only provide a much-needed shelter from the sweltering desert sun, but once inside the dazzling effect of the play of light within the tunnels can be seen. The top of each tunnel has small holes, forming on each, the constellations of Draco
, Perseus
, Columba
, and Capricorn
, respectively. The diameters of the holes differ in relation to the magnitude of the stars represented. These holes cast spots of daylight in the dark interiors of the tunnels, which appear almost like stars. Holt has said of the tunnels, "It’s an inversion of the sky/ground relationship-bringing the sky down to the earth." This is a common theme in Holt’s work. She sometimes creates this relationship with reflecting pools and shadow patterns marked on the ground, like in her work Star Crossed.
in 1979, in conjunction with an urban-renewal project. Construction of the work began in 1984. Holt worked with an architect, landscape architect, engineers, and real estate developers on the project. The artwork is at once a park and a sculpture. Built on two-thirds of an acre of land where a run-down, old gas station and warehouse once stood, Holt transformed the space. The park consists of five spheres, two pools, four steel poles, a stairway, a large tunnel for passage, a smaller tunnel for viewing only and plantings of crown vetch
, winter creeper, willow oak
, and earth and grass.
The forms stand in stark contrast to the busy and highly developed commercial area that surrounds the space. There are places to walk and sit within the park, giving a passersby a chance to escape from the urban environment. Dark Star Park is more socially interactive than Holt’s other works. Holt paid attention to how people both inside and outside the park would see the spheres. The work alters the viewer’s perception by using curvilinear forms, such as the walkways that mimic the curving roads surrounding the site. Walking in the park or driving by it, viewers may mistake spheres of different sizes to actually be the same size or one sphere may eclipse another. The tunneled passages into the park frame certain sculptural elements, as do the reflections in the pools. However, Holt has made sure not to alienate the park entirely from its surroundings. The spheres are made of gunite (a sprayable mixture of cement and sand), asphalt, precast concrete tunnels, steel poles and stone masonry. These materials relate the park to the buildings located near the artwork.
The work explores the concept of time and our relationship to the universe. When approaching one of the spheres, a visitor to the park might be reminded of the lunar surface or when glancing at the quiet pools of water around the spheres, may relate them to craters. This is no coincidence. Holt has a fascination with solar eclipse
s, as well as in the shadows cast by the sun on the surface of the earth and the name of the park is a reference to the astronomical appearance of the large spheres that are its most distinct features. In speaking about the name Holt has said, "It’s called Dark Star Park because in my imagination these spheres are like stars that have fallen to the ground-they no longer shine-so I think of the park/artwork in a somewhat celestial way." By engaging the viewer with these spheres and the other elements surrounding them in the park, Holt brings the vast scale of nature and the cosmos back to human scale. Time is also a major part of this work. Once a year on August 1 at 9:32 am, the shadows cast by two of the spheres and their four adjacent poles align with permanent asphalt shadow patterns outlined on the ground. This date was selected by the artist to commemorate the day in 1860 when William Ross
bought the land that today is Rosslyn, Virginia
, where the park is situated.
Holt took on the challenging task of playing many roles in the park’s creation, becoming at once an artist, landscape designer, and committee member for approving plans for a nearby building. To take on all three roles possibly had never been done before by an artist, thus the park and its designer remain important to the history of art.
Still unfinished in April 2008, the landfill is to be turned into an earth sculpture and public park. The landfill has been covered with grass. Ten mounds stand upon the site, as well as steel poles, plants, and a pond, designed for the approximately 250 species of migratory birds that visit the area seasonally. There will eventually be wind indicators and gravel paths. On several astronomically significant dates each year, the work will provide its viewer with unique views of the sun, moon, and several stars.
In addition, a series of arcing pipes will go down into the landfill, recovering methane
from the 10 million tons of garbage below. This will provide an alternative source of energy for those in the community.
Sky Mound’s location makes it visible and accessible to many people. Holt believes the work will increase awareness of the complex problem of how we dispose of our waste and trash. It also raises questions about the sun, as every ecosystem depends on the sun and its energy for survival. In 1991, funding on Sky Mound was stopped to perform a technological study at the site; currently construction remains postponed.
), East Coast, West Coast (1969), and Swamp (1971) in collaboration with her late husband Robert Smithson
. Points of View: Clocktower (1974) features conversations between Lucy Lippard and Richard Serra
, Liza Bear and Klaus Kertess, Carl Andre
and Ruth Kligman
and Bruce Brice and Tina Girouard. In 1978, she produced a 16mm color film documenting the seminal work Sun Tunnels.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
famous for her public sculpture, installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and land art
Land art
Land art, Earthworks , or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked...
. Throughout her career, Holt has also produced works in other mediums, including film, photography, and writing artist’s books.
Biography
Nancy Holt was born in Worcester, MassachusettsWorcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
. She spent a great deal of her childhood in New Jersey. She was educated at Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
in Medford, Massachusetts
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States, on the Mystic River, five miles northwest of downtown Boston. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 56,173...
. Three years after graduating, she married fellow environmental artist Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
in 1963. Holt began her artistic career as a photographer and as a video artist. This involvement with photography and camera optics are thought to have influenced her later earthworks, which are “literally seeing devices, fixed points for tracking the positions of the sun, earth and stars.” Today Holt is most widely known for her large-scale environmental works, Sun Tunnels and Dark Star Park. However, she has created site-specific
Site-specific
Site-specific is used in a range of contexts:In art Site-specific artIn molecular biology Site-specific recombination...
environmental works in public places all over the world. Holt has contributed to various publications, which have featured both her written articles and photographs. She has also authored several books. Holt has received five National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowships, New York Creative Artist Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. She currently works and resides in Galisteo, New Mexico
Galisteo, New Mexico
Galisteo is a census-designated place in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 265 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
.
The Land Art Tradition
Holt is associated with earthworks or land artLand art
Land art, Earthworks , or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked...
. Land art emerged in the 1960s, coinciding with a growing ecology movement in the United States, which asked people to become more aware of the negative impact they can have on the natural environment. Land art changed the way people thought of art; it took art out of the gallery or museum and into the natural landscape
Natural landscape
A natural landscape is a landscape that is unaffected by human activity. A natural landscape is intact when all living and nonliving elements are free to move and change. The nonliving elements distinguish a natural landscape from a wilderness. A wilderness includes areas within which natural...
, the product of which were huge works engaging elements of the environment. Unlike much of the commercialized art during this time period, land art could not be bought or sold on the art market. Thus, it shifted the perspective of how people all over the world viewed art.
Land art was typically created in remote, uninhabited regions of the country, particularly the Southwest. Some attribute this popular location for land art to artists’ need to escape the turmoil in the United States during the 1960s and 70s by turning to the open, uncorrupted land of the West. Holt believes this artistic movement came about in the United States due to the vastness of the American landscape. As a result of earthworks not being easily accessible to the public, documentation in photographs, videos, drawings became imperative to their being seen. The first exhibit of contemporary land art was at the Virginia Dwan Gallery in New York in 1968. Other earth artists who emerged during this time include James Turrell
James Turrell
James Turrell is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space. Turrell was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984. He is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York...
, Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria
-Early life and career:De Maria was born in Albany, California on October 1, 1935. He studied history and art at the University of California, Berkeley from 1953 to 1959. Although trained as a painter, De Maria soon turned to sculpture and began using other media...
, Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer is a contemporary artist specializing primarily in large-scale sculptures and earth art .Heizer was born in Berkeley, California in 1944; and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. Traveling to New York City in 1966, he began his career producing more conventional, small-scale...
, and Dennis Oppenheim.
Perception of Time and Space
Holt’s works of art often deal with issues of how people perceive time and space. The various monumental works she has created blend with and complement their environment. Works such as Hydra’s Head do not merely sit in their environments, but are made of the land, stand on it and are created to be harmonious with the land. The pools in this work are at the top of concrete tubes imbedded in the ground. The land already at the site surrounds these pools. They reflect the natural landscapeNatural landscape
A natural landscape is a landscape that is unaffected by human activity. A natural landscape is intact when all living and nonliving elements are free to move and change. The nonliving elements distinguish a natural landscape from a wilderness. A wilderness includes areas within which natural...
, while not disturbing it. Holt thinks about human scale in relation to the work she creates. People can interact with the works and become more aware of space, of their own visual perception, and of the order of the universe. Holt’s works incorporate the passage of time and also function to keep time. For example, Annual Ring functions so that when sunlight falls through the hole in the dome and fits perfectly into a ring on the ground, it is solar noon on the summer solstice
Summer solstice
The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also...
. At different times, the sun falls differently on the work and other holes in the dome align with celestial occurrences. Holt has said that she is concerned with making art that not only makes an impact visually, but is also functional and necessary in society, as seen in works like Sky Mound, which serves a dual function as a sculpture and park and it also generates alternative energy.
In her works, Holt creates an intimate connection to nature and the stars, saying, "I feel that the need to look at the sky-at the moon and the stars-is very basic, and it is inside all of us. So when I say my work is an exteriorization of my own inner reality, I mean I am giving back to people through art what they already have in them." In other words, Holt is saying that people have within them a basic need to observe the sky and through her works she wants to highlight and make people aware of that need.
Collaboration
Collaboration with architects, engineers, construction crews, and the like is an essential part of creating land art. Solar Rotary is a work located on the campus of the University of South FloridaUniversity of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
in Tampa, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
. The work, consists of 20 ft (6.1 m). aluminum poles topped with a swirl of metal called a shadow caster, which casts a circle of light on a central seat when it is solar noon on the day of the summer solstice. On five days a year at different times, the shadow caster is designed to create a circle of light around plaques placed in the ground that mark important events in Florida’s history. Thus, for Solar Rotary, Holt employed Dr. Jack Robinson, an archaeo-astronomer and professor to help her, among other things, to plot the sun’s coordinates for the work. For almost all of Holt’s works, she has had some collaboration. For Dark Star Park, Holt coordinated with developer J.W. Kaempfer, Jr., of the Kaempfer Company, in integrating the design of his adjacent building, Park Place Office Building into her design for the park. She also worked in collaboration with an architect, landscape architect, engineers, and real estate developers on the work. For Rock Rings, Holt searched far and wide to find the right masons to work on the piece and also had local stone called schist, which was 250-million-years old, quarried by hand for the work. Despite all of the collaboration, Holt notes that she is always present for the construction of her artworks.
Sun Tunnels
Sun Tunnels is located in the Great Basin DesertGreat Basin Desert
The Great Basin Desert is an area of nearctic high deserts across parts of Nevada, California, and Utah that extends into the Colorado River watershed , but which is mostly a portion of the central Nevada desert basins of the Great Basin.It along with the Escalante Desert, Mohave Desert, the...
outside of the ghost town of Lucin, Utah
Lucin, Utah
Lucin is an abandoned railroad community in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, along the western side of the Great Salt Lake, northwest of Salt Lake City.- History :...
. The work is a product of Holt’s interest in the great variation of intensity of the sun in the desert compared to the sun in the city. Holt searched for and found a site which was remote and empty.
"It is a very desolate area, but it is totally accessible, and it can be easily visited, making Sun Tunnels more accessible really than art in museums . . . A work like Sun Tunnels is always accessible . . . Eventually, as many people will see Sun Tunnels as would see many works in a city-in a museum anyway."
The work consists of four massive concrete tunnels (18 feet long and nine feet in diameter), which are arranged in an “X” configuration to total a length of 86 feet (26.2 m). Each tunnel reacts differently to the sun, aligned with the sunrise, sunset, or the summer or winter solstice. Someone visiting the site would see the tunnels immediately with their contrast to the fairly undifferentiated desert landscape. Approaching the work, which can be seen one to one-and-a-half miles away, the viewer’s perception of space is questioned as the tunnels change views as a product of their landscape.
The tunnels not only provide a much-needed shelter from the sweltering desert sun, but once inside the dazzling effect of the play of light within the tunnels can be seen. The top of each tunnel has small holes, forming on each, the constellations of Draco
Draco (constellation)
Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. Draco is circumpolar for many observers in the northern hemisphere...
, Perseus
Perseus (constellation)
Perseus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the Greek hero Perseus. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union...
, Columba
Columba (constellation)
Columba is a small, faint constellation created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is Latin for dove. It is located just south of Canis Major and Lepus.-History:...
, and Capricorn
Capricornus
Capricornus is one of the constellations of the zodiac; it is often called Capricorn, especially when referring to the corresponding astrological sign. Its name is Latin for "horned male goat" or "goat horn", and it is commonly represented in the form of a sea-goat: a mythical creature that is half...
, respectively. The diameters of the holes differ in relation to the magnitude of the stars represented. These holes cast spots of daylight in the dark interiors of the tunnels, which appear almost like stars. Holt has said of the tunnels, "It’s an inversion of the sky/ground relationship-bringing the sky down to the earth." This is a common theme in Holt’s work. She sometimes creates this relationship with reflecting pools and shadow patterns marked on the ground, like in her work Star Crossed.
Dark Star Park
Dark Star Park was commissioned by Arlington County, VirginiaArlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal capital district. On February 27, 1801, the United States Congress organized the area as a subdivision of...
in 1979, in conjunction with an urban-renewal project. Construction of the work began in 1984. Holt worked with an architect, landscape architect, engineers, and real estate developers on the project. The artwork is at once a park and a sculpture. Built on two-thirds of an acre of land where a run-down, old gas station and warehouse once stood, Holt transformed the space. The park consists of five spheres, two pools, four steel poles, a stairway, a large tunnel for passage, a smaller tunnel for viewing only and plantings of crown vetch
Crown Vetch
Securigera varia, commonly known as Crown Vetch or Purple Crown Vetch, is a low-growing legume vine. It is native to Africa, Asia and Europe and is commonly used throughout the United States and Canada for erosion control, roadside planting and soil rehabilitation...
, winter creeper, willow oak
Willow Oak
Quercus phellos is a deciduous tree in the red oak group of oaks. It is native to eastern North America from southern New York south to northern Florida, and west to southernmost Illinois and eastern Texas...
, and earth and grass.
The forms stand in stark contrast to the busy and highly developed commercial area that surrounds the space. There are places to walk and sit within the park, giving a passersby a chance to escape from the urban environment. Dark Star Park is more socially interactive than Holt’s other works. Holt paid attention to how people both inside and outside the park would see the spheres. The work alters the viewer’s perception by using curvilinear forms, such as the walkways that mimic the curving roads surrounding the site. Walking in the park or driving by it, viewers may mistake spheres of different sizes to actually be the same size or one sphere may eclipse another. The tunneled passages into the park frame certain sculptural elements, as do the reflections in the pools. However, Holt has made sure not to alienate the park entirely from its surroundings. The spheres are made of gunite (a sprayable mixture of cement and sand), asphalt, precast concrete tunnels, steel poles and stone masonry. These materials relate the park to the buildings located near the artwork.
The work explores the concept of time and our relationship to the universe. When approaching one of the spheres, a visitor to the park might be reminded of the lunar surface or when glancing at the quiet pools of water around the spheres, may relate them to craters. This is no coincidence. Holt has a fascination with solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...
s, as well as in the shadows cast by the sun on the surface of the earth and the name of the park is a reference to the astronomical appearance of the large spheres that are its most distinct features. In speaking about the name Holt has said, "It’s called Dark Star Park because in my imagination these spheres are like stars that have fallen to the ground-they no longer shine-so I think of the park/artwork in a somewhat celestial way." By engaging the viewer with these spheres and the other elements surrounding them in the park, Holt brings the vast scale of nature and the cosmos back to human scale. Time is also a major part of this work. Once a year on August 1 at 9:32 am, the shadows cast by two of the spheres and their four adjacent poles align with permanent asphalt shadow patterns outlined on the ground. This date was selected by the artist to commemorate the day in 1860 when William Ross
William Ross
-Politicians:*William Ross, Baron Ross of Marnock , Secretary of State for Scotland in the 1960s*William Ross , merchant, ship builder and politician in Nova Scotia, Canada...
bought the land that today is Rosslyn, Virginia
Rosslyn, Virginia
Rosslyn is an unincorporated area in Northern Virginia located in the northeastern corner of Arlington County, Virginia, north of Arlington National Cemetery and directly across the Potomac River from Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Rosslyn encompasses the Arlington neighborhoods of North Rosslyn...
, where the park is situated.
Holt took on the challenging task of playing many roles in the park’s creation, becoming at once an artist, landscape designer, and committee member for approving plans for a nearby building. To take on all three roles possibly had never been done before by an artist, thus the park and its designer remain important to the history of art.
The work was surveyed in June 1995. At that time “treatment was needed.”. Thus, seven years later, when the park was finally restored in 2002 it was long overdue.
"I was the landscape designer as well as the sculptor, so the whole park became a work of art. And I was on the committee to approve the architectural design of the building adjacent to the park. I don’t think either of these situations ever happened before for an artist, so that was unusual, and it broke new ground for public art."
Sky Mound
Located in Northern New Jersey, Sky Mound sits where a 57 acres (230,671 m²), 100 feet (30.5 m)-high landfill once stood. The state’s Hackensack Meadowland Development Commission (HMDC) asked Holt to reclaim the site in an effort to provide an environmentally safe spot for plant and animal life to reside and for humans to enjoy.Still unfinished in April 2008, the landfill is to be turned into an earth sculpture and public park. The landfill has been covered with grass. Ten mounds stand upon the site, as well as steel poles, plants, and a pond, designed for the approximately 250 species of migratory birds that visit the area seasonally. There will eventually be wind indicators and gravel paths. On several astronomically significant dates each year, the work will provide its viewer with unique views of the sun, moon, and several stars.
In addition, a series of arcing pipes will go down into the landfill, recovering methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
from the 10 million tons of garbage below. This will provide an alternative source of energy for those in the community.
Sky Mound’s location makes it visible and accessible to many people. Holt believes the work will increase awareness of the complex problem of how we dispose of our waste and trash. It also raises questions about the sun, as every ecosystem depends on the sun and its energy for survival. In 1991, funding on Sky Mound was stopped to perform a technological study at the site; currently construction remains postponed.
Films
Holt has also made a number of films and videos since the late 1960s, including Mono Lake, (1968) (also with artist Michael HeizerMichael Heizer
Michael Heizer is a contemporary artist specializing primarily in large-scale sculptures and earth art .Heizer was born in Berkeley, California in 1944; and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. Traveling to New York City in 1966, he began his career producing more conventional, small-scale...
), East Coast, West Coast (1969), and Swamp (1971) in collaboration with her late husband Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
. Points of View: Clocktower (1974) features conversations between Lucy Lippard and Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
, Liza Bear and Klaus Kertess, Carl Andre
Carl Andre
Carl Andre is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American...
and Ruth Kligman
Ruth Kligman
Ruth Kligman was an American abstract artist and writer most commonly known as the muse of several other American artists of the mid-20th century including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning....
and Bruce Brice and Tina Girouard. In 1978, she produced a 16mm color film documenting the seminal work Sun Tunnels.
Selected Artworks
- Sun Tunnels (1973–76), Great Basin Desert, Utah
- Hydra’s Head (1974), Artpark, Lewiston, New York
- Rock Rings (1977–78), Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
- 30 Below (1979), Lake Placid, New York
- Wild Spot (1979–1980), Wellesley, Massachusetts
- Star-Crossed (1979–81), Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
- Dark Star Park (1979–1984), Rosslyn, Virginia
- Annual Ring (1980–81), Federal Building, Saginaw, Michigan
- Time Span (1981), Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas
- Catch Basin (1982), St. James Park Toronto, Canada
- Electrical System II (1982), Bellman Circuit, Toronto, Canada
- Sole Source (1983), Dublin, Ireland
- End of the Line/West Rock (1985), Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, Connecticut
- Astral Grating (1987), Fulton Street/Broadway-Nassau Subway Station, New York. Commissioned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit
- Skymound (1988–Present), Hackensack, New Jersey
- Ventilation IV: Hampton Air (1992), Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York
- Solar Rotary (1995), University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
- Up and Under (1998), Hämeenkyrö, Finland
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 1972 Art Gallery, University of Montana, Missoula Missouri
- 1972 Art Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston
- 1977 "Young American Filmmakers’ Series," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
- 1985 Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
- 1989 Montpellier Cultural Arts Center, Laurel, Maryland
- 1993 John Weber Gallery, New York, New York
- 2010 "Sightlines" Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery, New York, New York
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 1969 “Language III,” Dwan Gallery, New York, New York
- 1972 “International Art Exhibition,” Pamplona, Spain
- 1974 “Intervention in the Landscape,” Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- 1977 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
- 1981 “Summer Light,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
- 1983 “Monuments and Landscapes: The New Public Art,” McIntosh/Drysdale Gallery, Houston, Texas
- 1985 “Artist as Social Designer,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
- 1989 “Making Their Mark,” Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; Denver Art Museum, Denver Colorado; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1998 Wiener Kunstverein, Vienna, Austria
- 1999 “After Image: Drawing Through Process,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
- 2007 "Cosmologies" James Cohan Gallery, New York City, New York
Sources
- Arlington County Department of Parks, Recreation and Community. Nancy Holt: Dark Star Park. http://www.arlingtonarts.org/cultural_affairs/public%20art%20images/dark%20star%20brochure.pdf.
- Arnason, H.H. History of Modern Art. 5th ed. Upper Sadlle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004.
- Baskin, Anita. "Stonehenge in New Jersey." Omni, August 1992, 63.
- Beebe, Mary Livingston. "Tell Me, Is It Flat or Is It Round?" Art Journal 41, no. 2 (1981): 169-170.
- Beardsley, John. "Traditional Aspects of New Land Art." Art Journal 42, no. 3 Earthworks: Past and Present (1982): 226-332.
- Bennett, Lennie. "Nancy Holt, Solar Rotary." "St. Petersburg Times, August 6, 2006. http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/06/Floridian/Nancy_Holt__Solar_Rot.shtml.
- Brown, Jeffrey. “Online NewsHour: Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty' Celebrates its 30th Anniversary.” PBS Online, May 6, 2005.
- Doss, Erika. "Twentieth-Century American Art." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Grosenick, Uta, ed. Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century. London: Taschen, 2005.
- Marter, Joan. "Collaborations: Artists and Architects on Public Sites." Art Journal 48, no. 4 Critical Issues in Public Art (1989): 315-320.
- Matlisky, Barbara C. Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists’ Interpretations and Solutions. New York: Rizzoli International, 1992.
- McGill, Douglas C. "Jersey Landfill to Become an Artwork." New York Times, September 3, 1986.
- Saad-Cook, Janet, Charles Ross, Nancy Holt, and James Turrell. "Touching the Sky: Artworks Using Natural Phenomena, Earth, Sky and Connections to Astronomy." Leonardo 21, no. 2 (1988): 123-134.
- Sky Mound. 2006. http://greenmuseum.org/c/aen/Images/Ecology/sky.php.
- Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1209Y08P255N5.856&profile=ariall&uri=link=3100006~!203174~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=2&source=~!siartinventories&term=Holt%2C+Nancy%2C+1938-+%2C+sculptor.&index=AUTHOR.
- Van Wagner, Judy Collischan. Long Island Estate Gardens. Greenvale New York: Hillwood Art Gallery, May 22-June 21, 1985.
- Withers, Josephine. "In the World: An Art Essay." Feminist Studies 9, no. 2 (1983): 325-334.
External links
- Nancy Holt on artcyclopedia.com
- Nancy Holt in the Video Data Bank
- Nancy Holt's films and videos at Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
- Sky Mound (1984-) at greenmuseum.org
- Solar Rotary (1995) at University of Southern Florida
- Solar Rotary in St. Petersburg Times
- Sun Tunnels (1973-76) at clui.org
- Sun Tunnels on NPR
- Astral Grating (1987) at Fulton Street/Broadway-Nassau subway station in NYC
- Up and Under by Nancy Holt