What fascinates me about Nancy Holt is that she was a wanderer between worlds. She had a lot of conceptual thoughts.

For example, she experimented with so-called Earth Works. In the 1970s, ecological art emerged, which was not about solid objects or sculptures in nature like Land Art, but about dealing with the environment and sustainability.

From today’s perspective, Nancy Holt was visionary because she has always included ecological aspects in her doing. There is a work called “View through a sand dune.” It is a pipe that was pushed through a dune. For Nancy Holt, the pipe was a locator that directs the gaze and therefore attention. We all experience it: When you put a frame around something, a cinematic narrative develops, a distinction between inside and outside, a new perception. You think about your own location and gain a new awareness of yourself and your surrounding.

For Nancy Hold, it was absolutely crucial that scientists told her that this work was not harmful to the environment, but rather slowed down the erosion of the dune. She studied biology herself and always did a lot of analysis beforehand. She involved researchers, residents and other people in her work, without any hierarchy. When she did a work in nature, she always spent a long time in that place, for example she slept in the desert. She wanted to connect with this certain place on an intimate level. No matter where she went, she was never indifferent. She had care and respect.

Nancy Holt’s art is never dominant, but rather allows the viewer their own agency. She wants to leave things open. She doesn’t use a lot of material, everything is reduced, light and ethereal.

Nancy Holt is not an easy artist to exhibit. Many of her works are in the middle of nature. What we can show is the creation and the thought process behind them. In this way, we are trying to make Nancy Holt better known to the general public, because many of her ideas fit so well into today’s times. But so far she is known more in a niche. There are huge fans of Nancy Holt who make pilgrimages to her works worldwide, no matter how remote they are.

Nancy Holt did not see herself as part of a feminist art movement. Nevertheless, her life and career was very feminist for the time. It was also rare that she produced such colossal art that was otherwise typically made by men. She lived feminism instead of proclaiming it.