Room text: Nancy Holt (*1938–2014, USA)

Nancy Holt is considered a pioneer of Land Art and is also closely associated with the ideas of Light and Space. She became famous for monumental projects such as the „Sun Tunnels“ (1973–76) in Utah, where she used the position of the sun and constellations as points of orientation. Fundamental to her work is her preoccupation with the perception of light, time, and space: How do people see and understand their environment?

Her so-called “Locator” sculptures from the 1970s are like precisely aligned viewing devices. Metal tubes on tripods direct the gaze to specific points or light sources. Looking through them, the viewer experiences how vision is constantly changing—depending on perspective, environment, and natural or artificial light.

Holt also makes this interplay visible in her photo series “Light and Shadow Photo Drawings” (1978). The images show how light and shadow create abstract forms. In this way, the lighting conditions themselves become the artistic subject. With these works, Holt opened up new perspectives: light becomes not only the material of art, but also the instrument with which we experience our relationship to space and the environment.