In 1966 Nancy Holt made her first artworks, taking the form of concrete poems. One year later she created Stone Ruin Tour, extending her exploration of language from the page to the landscape and marking her first experiments with sound.

  In June 1967, Holt tape-recorded herself dictating a tour through a crumbling labyrinthine garden with stone walls, overlooks, and disappearing stairways in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. This she transcribed to create an imperfect and unfinished map to explore the site, which was given to artist friends as a guide. 

This guided audio tour recorded by Holt directs the visitor’s gaze and body positioning, calling specific, methodical attention to details of the interior and exterior of John Weber Gallery. Much of Holt’s observations are concerned with the mundane: the shape of the chimney on a building, the number of panes of glass on a window. The tour includes an interaction with Holt’s Locators, the telescope-like tubes that restrict visual space to a singular view. Holt’s rigorous specificity creates a surprisingly intimate experience; the viewer is able to share perception with the artist.