Circles of Light

A spotlight on Nancy Holt’s exhibition at Gropiu Bau, Berlin.

Nancy Holt’s work masterfully explores the perceptions of time and space, with her art acting as a tool not to capture a subject or idea, but to capture the relationship between the viewer and their surroundings. ‘Circles of Light’ presents a curated selection of Holt’s work from 1966 to 1986, offering the most comprehensive showcase of her art in Germany to date. On show at Gropius Bau, Berlin until July 27th.

Born in 1938 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Nancy Holt was a pioneering figure in the land art movement, renowned for her ability to push boundaries on what art can be and her interactive approach on how we perceive time, nature and our own environment. Unlike other conceptual land artists, Holt’s pieces are not just monuments, they have an actual purpose: they are there to see through, move through or to move other elements. Her art needs to be experienced, not just seen. Her work also encompasses text, audio, photography and film. Holt started creating concrete poems in the mid 1960s, while she worked as an assistant literary editor at the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Influenced by found poems, the art of taking words and phrases from different sources and giving them a new meaning, she used fortune cookie phrases, exhibitions descriptions, among other phrases, in order to create her literary collages. She experimented with text, changing the structure and syntax of phrases in order to challenge the way we understand and perceive things.

“When looking at something there’s a tendency for certain cards to flip in our brains, certain words to pop up in consciousness – like you see a bird and the first thing you do is name the bird, instead of just being present to the phenomenon of the bird.”

Nancy Holt with Mirrors of Light II at Walter Kelly Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, in 1974 Photograph: John R. Bayalis
Portrait of Nancy Holt taken on the steps up to the Clocktower Gallery, New York (1974) Photograph: Gwenn Thomas
Nancy Holt, Tour of the John Weber Gallery (1972) Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locating Perception, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, 2022 Score: typewriter ink and pencil on paper, four pages presented in a vitrine Wall signs: ink on poster board Signs: 39 7/8 x 36 in. (101.3 x 91.4 cm) each Digitized audio recording Duration: 11 minutes, 13 seconds Photograph: Robert Wedemeyer

Her interest in language is also evident in her film and audio works, where she explores aspects of communication, misunderstandings and how we turn our observations into words and actions. “The World Through a Circle” is one of her earlier important pieces. It shows her interest in the perception of our surroundings, crucial to her later work. The poem is presented in a circular form, made up of six words: sun, moon, water, sky, earth and star. The lines below describe the multiple frames from which we can perceive the world, from our own eyes to a reflection or camera lens. “When looking at something there’s a tendency for certain cards to flip in our brains, certain words to pop up in consciousness – like you see a bird and the first thing you do is name the bird, instead of just being present to the phenomenon of the bird.” – Nancy Holt

“All Holt’s public works are tools for seeing. Viewers don’t look at them but through them to discover other realms.”

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels photo studies [detail] (1975) Eighty-three black and white Instamatic photographs with graphite on reverse 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (9 x 9 cm) each
Nancy Holt, Locator with Mirror (1972) Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locators, Parafin, London, 2015 Steel pipe, mirror Locator: 60 x 12 x 2 in. (152 x 31 x 5 cm); mirror: 10 in. (25 cm) diameter; distance from Locator to mirror: 20 in. (50.8 cm) Photograph: Peter Mallet
Nancy Holt, Pine Barrens [still] (1975) 16mm film Color, sound Duration: 31 minutes, 21 seconds
Nancy Holt, Electrical System (1982)Installation view: Nancy Holt: Locating Perception, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, 20223/4 in. steel conduit, lighting and electrical fixtures, light bulbs, electrical wire, electricity34 ft. 6 in. x 25 ft. 4 in. x 9 ft. 2 in. (10.5 x 7.7 x 2.8 m)Photograph: Robert Wedemeyer

In the early 70s, she started the creation of the Locator sculptures, and these represented a turning point on her work. The sculptures, made of welded industrial piping, were designed to be looked through with one eye, like a viewfinder. The first Locator was positioned in her studio, and later on, they were distributed across a wide field in Montana. These where known as the “Missoula Ranch Locators”.The Locators were sculptures to look with, to be used as “seeing devices”, and according to the artist, they were the key that led to her later work, “Sun Tunnels”. Perhaps her most famous work are the “Sun Tunnels”, four large-scale concrete cylinders arranged in a cross formation, sitting in Utah’s Great Basin Desert. The cylinders are positioned to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the summer and winter solstices, and each of the cylinders features a configuration of holes representing four different constellations: Draco, Capricorn, Perseus and Columba. The idea behind the tunnels was to bring the starts down to earth and “bring the vast space of the desert back down to human scale”, in the artists’s words.

The perforations are designed to allow the light from the sun and moon to project the different constellation patterns inside the tunnels. Alongside the land art, she created a set of photographs and film. “Sunlight in Sun Tunnels” is a photographic series featuring the sun passing throughout the tunnels. She documented the changing patterns of light and shadow inside the tunnels by photographing them every half hour throughout the day, resulting in an almost fifteen-hour process.The accompanying film, takes us along the construction process of the tunnels, which required over thirty workers, including an astrophysicist, ditch diggers and ten workers from a concrete pipe company. Similarly to her previous works, “Sun tunnels” also acts as an observing tool, and is meant to be experienced from different angles, not just a single perspective. You have to go in and walk through them in order to experience the work. “All Holt’s public works are tools for seeing. Viewers don’t look at them but through them to discover other realms.”

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1973-76) Great Basin Desert, Utah Concrete, steel, earth Overall dimensions: 9 ft. 2-1/2 in. x 86 ft. x 53 ft. (2.8 x 26.2 x 16.2 m); length on the diagonal: 86 ft. (26.2 m) Photograph: Nancy Holt Collection Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation
Nancy Holt, Sunlight in Sun Tunnels (1976) Inkjet print on archival rag paper; composite made by the artist from original 35mm transparencies 50 1/8 x 61 1/2 in. (127.3 x 156.2 cm) Edition of 5 + 1AP

Circles of Light

Credits:

Artist: Nancy Holt
Words: Camila Correa / @cami.correahg
Location: Gropius Bau / @gropiusbau

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