Review by Nancy Holt – space adventure where the hidden forces of space are revealed | Art

Met pays to think big if you’re an artist. You know, open the window and try to get away from the minutiae of life, the daily problems, and think a little about the world. Land artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014) was an expert at it; in the use of his work to put the body, and many people, all over the world, in the sky. Holt is one of the country artists of his generation – people love it Michael Heizer, Richard Long and partner, Robert Smithson – wanted to remove the restrictions of paint and cloth, stone and chisel, museum and museum. The world, nature, the world itself, was the medium.

Goodwood It is the best venue for his work in the UK to date – a large, green space in the middle of the West Sussex countryside. There are two large sculptures placed around the site, the Ventilation System and the Hydra’s Head. At first, a large iron plant surrounds the house; large aluminum tubes, all interconnected, run around the site and back into the house.

Holt wanted to reveal the secrets of our built environment, but the work felt more physical than that. They are like the lungs of the house, like the lungs that bring in life and expel bad air. Fresh air is often hidden in buildings because it produces noxious fumes from water tanks or toilets, but here it is out in the open. The building builds and breathes just like we do. There should be no shame in that. It’s normal, it’s a part of life.

Then you walk outside, through a lush meadow, stumble across a glistening white chalk court and discover 6 concrete pools filled with water, arranged like the head of the constellation Hydra. When you look up, they are black abysses, black holes that absorb light, abysses that want to pull you in. But nearby, suddenly, you see the trees looking back, the birds flying, the sky, your face. It’s the sky, the distant stars, the earth, the birds and the bees and the trees are all here, in this exact moment. It is a picture of you in the universe, a picture of its size and your small place in it. Best for soft, still water.

All other functions are in the main image areas. There are pictures, drawings and poems, and as is often the case with artists on land, they struggle to match the great power of external works. A list of written images inscriptions on stones and gates in the countryside – small dots on stones, like small drawings in nature. Another list shows the English forest where Holt put the poem he wrote to Smithson, with instructions on how to find it. Except we don’t get poetry, or advice. Just a few pictures of wet ferns.

Other images see Holt “painting” with light and shadow, creating black and white bars and lines with slits in the paper. They are beautiful, but a little unintelligible. The installation of lamps illuminates the mirrors, tracing an elliptical projection through the other wall. He Sun Tunnels – large concrete cylinders placed in the Utah desert, channeling and sunlight – are recorded in several images. It’s all good enough work, but it doesn’t speak to his sense of universal growth and eternal connection.

Which is a shame, because if they had been brave enough and somehow filled the space with Holt’s work on the same scale as Hydra’s Head or Ventilation System, this would have been an amazing show. But as it is, it doesn’t think big enough.