News 2021: Nancy Holt: Massachusetts exhibits open to public
Nancy Holt: Massachusetts exhibits open to public

Two-gallery exhibition will remain open through Jan. 23, 2022.

Nancy Holt Symposium
National Park Service Ranger Andrew Schnetzer offers the tour “Whales to Weaves: Industry Remembered,” a new tour of Nancy Holt's Spinwinder (1991) on the occasion of its 30th anniversary celebration. Photo: Chris Diani

Thursday, Nov. 11 kicked off the opening reception for Nancy Holt: Massachusetts, drawing more than 100 attendees for public art tours, discussions, lectures, and gallery visits on two UMass Dartmouth campuses.

Celebrating the renowned multimedia artist and her connections to Massachusetts, the project presents new research into Holt’s relationship to the region and her UMass Dartmouth campus sculpture Spinwinder (1991) on its 30th anniversary. 

The two-gallery exhibition is open through Jan. 23. The CVPA Campus Gallery at 285 Old Westport Road in Dartmouth features Holt’s 1982 Electrical System, an immersive, site-specific installation made of bent conduit and dozens of electrical bulbs. The artwork is one of Holt’s “systems works,” which call attention to infrastructures of the built environment that are conventionally not made visible. The University Art Gallery at the Star Store Campus at 715 Purchase Street in New Bedford features multiple artworks by Holt that address her family history in the region. The gallery also showcases archival materials and artworks from Nancy Holt’s grandfather, Samuel Holt, who was head of the Designing department of the New Bedford Textile School. The exhibition features four artworks that were donated to the UMass Dartmouth Archives by Holt/Smithson Foundation on the occasion of this exhibition.

View the exhibition brochure here.

For more information about the exhibitions and symposium, please see the University Gallery website.

Check out videos about the making of Electrical System (1982) and the new interpretive tour and plaque for Spinwinder (1991), as well as pictures from the Nov. 11 symposium events below: