Throughout her career, Holt presented four iterations of “Ventilation System”: at Temple Gallery, Philadelphia; and Palladium, New York (both in 1985); at the Tampere Art Museum, Finland; and at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York (both in 1992). Posthumously, the installation has been presented on three occasions: at Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (both in 2022); and most recently at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2023).

The Scholarly Text Program regularly commissions thinkers from various disciplines to write 1,200 words on single artworks by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. The authors explore how Holt and Smithson’s ideas resonate through artistic and cultural production in the present, exploring topics ranging from geology to ecology, poetry, architecture, science fiction, public art, sculpture, drawing, film, exhibition histories or philosophy. The Scholarly Text Program will publish two essays on each work, presenting differing opinions and approaches. Each new essay includes images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation references, endnotes pointing to the author’s references and an ISBN. 

Stay tuned for Max Andrews’ upcoming contribution on Smithson’s article “Aerial Art” (1969) next month.

Thank you to Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, for the kind invitation to contribute to the foundation’s growing Scholarly Texts Program archive and to William T. Carson, Program Manager and Assistant Curator, for the research assistance. Extended gratitude to Chicago-based artist Nick Raffel for the insightful online studio visit and to Maxwell Graham Gallery, New York.