An expansive ceiling and light installation in the passageway between the Broadway-Nassau St and Fulton St stations, “Astral Grating” gives physical form to the cycle of the sun, moon and stars. The rings and light fixtures in this ceiling light sculpture are in the configuration of the stars in five constellations: Aries, Auriga, Canis Major, Cygnus, and Piscis Austrinus.  

Recent construction on Fulton Center required that the work be removed and carefully stored as we make efforts to re-site the seminal sculpture in a new location.

Nancy Holt (1938 - 2014) was a member of the earth, land, and conceptual art movements. A pioneer of site-specific installation and the moving image, Holt expanded the places where art could be found and embraced the new media of her time. Holt’s rich artistic output spanned concrete poetry, audioworks, film and video, photography, slideworks, ephemeral gestures, drawings, room-sized installations, earthworks, artists’ books, and public sculpture commissions.

Born in Worcester in Massachusetts, Holt grew up in New Jersey. She graduated with a degree in biology from Tufts University in 1960. Later that year she moved to New York City where she met the artist Robert Smithson; they married in 1963. Holt began her artistic career as a photographer and as a video artist. Her involvement with photography and camera optics are thought to have influenced her later earthworks, and large-scale environmental works. Holt received five National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, New York Creative Artist Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.