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 © Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
What does it mean to notice how we see? Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics at the MAK Center at the Schindler House offers an encounter where art and architecture shape perception together. Over five decades, Nancy Holt (1938–2014) explored how we perceive the world, and how language, light, sound, and the built environment shape our sense of place. This exhibition brings Holt’s work into a responsive dialogue with the Schindler House, inviting visitors to experience art and architecture as partners in seeing.
At the center of the exhibition is Holt’s 1972 photographic poem California Sun Signs, which gathers the word “sun” as it appears across California’s commercial and infrastructural landscape. The exhibition also features Holt’s audio work—pieces she described as poems in place—alongside works related to her landmark Sun Tunnels project from the mid-1970s. Together, they invite visitors to slow down, to listen, and to notice how perception itself unfolds through space.
Nancy Holt
Nancy Holt (1938–2014) was central to the earth, land and conceptual art movements as well as an innovator of site-specific installation and experimental moving image. She recalibrated the limits of art, expanding the places where art could be found and embraced the new media of her time. Across five decades, she asked questions about how we might understand our place in the world, consistently investigating the relationships between perception, systems, and place. Holt’s rich artistic output spans concrete poetry, audioworks, film and video, photography, slideworks, ephemeral gestures, drawings, room-sized installations, earthworks, artists’ books, and public sculpture commissions.
Nancy Holt: Light and Shadow Poetics is curated by Lisa Le Feuvre and Beth Stryker.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2026
7:00–9:00 PM
This exhibition is presented in partnership with Sprüth Magers and Holt/Smithson Foundation.
