Concrete poetry was a big deal in the 1960s, even at the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar, where Nancy Holt (1938–2014) was an assistant literary editor for a few years. Words could be objects. Words engage space just as sculpture does. “The world through a circle / Elements real and reflected / Concentrated, encompassed / The sky brought down …” go lines from a 1970 poem by Holt. Its title is a circle made of the letters: SUNMOONWATERSKYEARTHSTAR. Holt happened to be married to the artist Robert Smithson, and both were part of the Land Art and conceptual art movements of the 1960s and 70s. Both pioneered site-specific installations. But Holt was far more word driven. This heady retrospective presents her early concrete poems and the important 1974 video installation, Points of View. —L.J.

Nancy Holt: Points of View
Parafin
18 Woodstock St, Mayfair, London W1C 2AL, United Kingdom
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