MACBA presents “Nancy Holt. Inside Outside”

From 29 June to 29 October 2023, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona presents the exhibition “Nancy Holt. Inside Outside“, dedicated to Nancy Holt (1938 -2014), one of the key figures of site-specific art.

Source: Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) – Image: Nancy Holt’s “Sun Tunnels”. Photo by Retis, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nancy_Holt,_Sun_Tunnels,_1973-1976.jpg

Nancy Holt (Worcester, Massachusetts, 1938 – New York, 2014) was a key figure in the New York art scene and a pioneer in the field of site-specific installation and moving image. “Inside Outside” is the most comprehensive exhibition of his practice in Europe to date, with an ambitious presentation of his multifaceted oeuvre. The exhibition includes a selection of works produced between 1966 and 1992, including film, video, photography, concrete poetry, sound works, sculpture and large-scale installations, as well as drawings and documentation of his Land Art projects. Two works from his “System Works” series – site-specific installations – will be shown here in their first posthumous re-creation. This is the case of “Ventilation System”, a playful sculpture that will occupy several floors, both indoors and outdoors, in a dialogue with the architecture of the MACBA.

Perception and the limits between the “inside” and the “outside” constitute the common thread of the exhibition. Nancy Holt herself was a figure who was both “inside” and “outside” the art system. She was a key artist in Land Art and conceptual art, yet her work never achieved the recognition that other male artists of her time did, an anomaly that this exhibition aims to redress. Highlighting Holt’s interest in perception, light and space, Nancy Holt. Inside Outside presents a series of previously unpublished photographic works. The series Alaskan Pines (1986), Athabascan/Russian Orthodox Graveyards (1986) and Miami Puddles (1969) will also be shown here for the first time, along with sound and film works from her travels through the American landscape.

Co-produced by MACBA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona, in collaboration with the Bildmuseet at Umeå University, Sweden, and the Holt/Smithson Foundation, Santa Fe, USA.