Locator (PS1)
1980 · Steel pipe and paint
Installation dimensions variable; Locator:: 152.4 × 30.5 × 5.1 cm (60 × 12 × 2 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Nancy Holt
1938–2014
WA-00003184
Worcester, MA, USA
PhotographyPhotographyLand Art
Representation
None documented
2
Institutional Exhibitions
2
Works in Collection
36
Assets Indexed
17
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
90%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Authority Records (2)
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
A Survey: Artist's TV Lab, WNET/Thirteen
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1984–1985
No image
Summer Light
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1981
Field Verification (7 fields)
7 cross-verified · 0 single-source
- NationalityWikidata + Duplicate Merge+2· 92%✓
- Birth yearWikidata + Duplicate Merge+1· 92%✓
- Primary mediumWikidata + Unknown· 92%✓
- Death yearWikidata + Unknown· 92%✓
- DeceasedWikidata + Unknown· 92%✓
- BiographyWikipedia + Unknown· 88%✓
- LocationArtsy + Gallery· 85%✓
Source Registry (2)
- Spruth-MagersTier 3 · Scraped/inferred100%
- MoMA bulk 2026-05-04Tier 1 · Institutional92%
About
Why this artist matters now
Nancy Holt worked across public sculpture, land art, installation, film, and photography, with her most commanding works operating at an architectural and environmental scale. Her practice treated light, time, and celestial alignment as primary materials, most famously in Sun Tunnels (1973-76), four large concrete cylinders positioned in the Utah desert to frame the horizon and filter sunlight through drilled apertures aligned with solstice and equinox. The work's precision and its negotiation of deep geological time against the cycles of human perception define her contribution to Land Art. Her legacy is administered by the Holt/Smithson Foundation, established in 2018.
Source: Spruth Magers · Trust score: 100% · Updated 2mo ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Photography
Medium
Photography
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (2)
Artwork sources (2)
2 published of 6 catalogued · 6 with image
- Art Institute Chicago2 published2 img
- + 1 more source · 4 catalogued, not yet published
Record
Images
29 assets
View all 29 media items →
Relationships
3Movements2
Collections1
Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
Background
Education
Tufts University
Visual Arts
University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
Visual Arts
Record