March 7, 2023
6:00p.m. MST
Admission: Free
at On Zoom Hosted by Kimball Art Center
Art Talk, Event, Exhibition Programming
Join us on March 7, 2023 for an engaging art discussion with expert Hikmet Loe on Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt. This will take place over Zoom, please RSVP below for a link.
Spiral Jetty (1970) and Sun Tunnels (1973-76)—each situated in Box Elder County, UT—are
site-specific in ways unique to their form and material makeup. While Robert Smithson invoked
the phrase “mud, salt crystals, rocks, water” to inform visitors and others what they could find at
Spiral Jetty (formerly) in the waters of Great Salt Lake, Nancy Holt invited the entirety of
landscape, sky, and celestial bodies to reference Sun Tunnels. A brief history of each work will
include the unique materials that are integral to our knowledge of Utah’s two earthworks.
Hikmet Sidney Loe (she/her) is part-time instructor in art history at University of Nevada, Las
Vegas. Her first book, The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson’s Earthwork through
Time and Place (2017) won the 15 Bytes annual Art Book Award (2018), and became the
template for future books on singular works from the Land art movement. She is currently writing
The Sun Tunnels Encyclo: Exploring Nancy Holt’s Earthrough through Perception and Site
(2026). Loe’s curatorial projects focus on ideas of place, most recently in the exhibitions The
Center Can Not Hold (Granary Arts, 2022-23) and Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las
Vegas Land Art (Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, UNLV, 2023).
https://www.hikmetsidneyloe.com/
Portrait image credit: Austen Diamond Photography
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty [still], 1970. 16 mm film on video, color, sound, 35 minutes. Courtesy of the Holt/Smithson Foundation and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
In Context: Hikmet Sidney Loe on Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt
