Dia Acquires ‘Sun Tunnels,’ Its First Piece of Land Art by a Woman
The newly formed Holt-Smithson Foundation has made its first move to secure the legacy of the pioneering land artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014), better known for safeguarding the work of her husband, Robert Smithson, after he died in 1973 than for promoting her own.
Holt’s monumental “Sun Tunnels” (1973-76), sited in the Great Basin Desert in Utah, has just been acquired by the Dia Art Foundation — its first such work by a woman. The combination gift and purchase from the Holt-Smithson Foundation also includes Holt’s room-size installation “Holes of Light” (1973), to be exhibited in September at Dia:Chelsea.
“We’re hoping the urban exhibition will encourage people to think about going out to the Great Basin Desert,” said Lisa Le Feuvre, executive director of the foundation responsible for the estates of Holt and Smithson.
Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia foundation, described the work’s appeal as both ancient and modern. “‘Sun Tunnels’ is a work that reaches back to a Renaissance fascination with astronomy but has a very contemporary physicality,” she said.
Four concrete hollow cylinders — each 18 feet long and 9 feet in diameter and perforated with a constellation of small apertures emitting patterns of light inside the tube — are arranged in the landscape in an open cross. The view through the tunnels frames the vast desert and is perfectly aligned with the setting sun during the summer and winter solstices.
“It tracks the environment for you as the sun moves across the landscape, even if you aren’t there at a solstice,” Ms. Morgan said.
The choice to partner with Dia seemed obvious, said Ms. Le Feuvre. In 1999, Holt had facilitated the donation of Smithson’s 1970 work “Spiral Jetty” — a 1,500-foot coil of black basalt and dirt rising out of Utah’s Great Salt Lake — to the collection of Dia. That foundation serves as the steward of seven other site-specific artworks around the world, beginning more than 40 years ago with Walter De Maria’s 1977 “Lightning Field” in New Mexico.