Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Hirshhorn 2023: End of Year

2023: A year of 10 exhibitions, 96 artists, 85+ acquisitions, 125,711 program attendees, 315,000+ followers... and you. Thank you for being a part of the Hirshhorn community this year - and stay tuned for an unforgettable 50th birthday celebration in 2024. --- Video courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. [Video description: Images and video illustrating a variety of numbers and statistics related to the Hirshhorn.]

Hirshhorn Plaza During Fall

Take a spin: The Hirshhorn will be open this Thanksgiving, Thu, Nov. 23, 10AM-5:30PM, and through the weekend. Whether you prefer your art indoors or outdoors, our doors are open to you. 🍂 Plan your visit: https://s.si.edu/3Mh7Qmc --- Video credit: Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. [Video description: Left-to-right pans of large, outdoor sculptures in the Hirshhorn Museum Plaza beneath fall foliage and a blue sky.]

Robert Irwin, "Square the Circle," 2016

"Robert Irwin (1928-2023) saw the world differently and, in a practice that spanned more than 60 years, he created artworks that encourage us to slow down and gain an appreciation of how we perceive. A pioneering figure of California Light and Space Art, Irwin is best known for room-sized installations that employed a light touch and unconventional materials such as scrim and light, transforming spaces ("the given circumstances of a site," he would say) and the perceptions of those who encountered them. "The Hirshhorn, in addition to holding five Irwin artworks in our collection, had the privilege of working with Bob on the occasion of our 2016 exhibition, "Robert Irwin: All the Rules will Change," which surveyed his art from the 1960s — when he was still making objects — and culminated with "Square the Circle," an extraordinary scrim installation that responded to our iconic architecture. (I still remember opening a mailing tube to find a plan of our galleries with a single red, hand-drawn line spanning one side....a perfectly simple, yet transformative gesture.) We invited him to design the exhibition and, with his inimitable attention to detail, he transformed our galleries into a series of successive walls, each featuring a single artwork. Together, they traced his methodical investigation of perception and phenomenology with increasingly spare means. By the time one encountered "Square the Circle," if they had opened themselves to what Irwin was showing them, a 120-foot length of translucent scrim spanning floor to ceiling gradually unfolded before them. "Irwin was one of the most important artists of the post-war era and his influence cannot be overstated. I can attest to the much more local impact that Bob had on the Hirshhorn staff, from those who realized his show and book to those who worked in the galleries throughout the exhibition's run. That, as much as the artworks themselves, is the legacy of Robert Irwin and we will always be grateful for th

Yayoi Kusama's "Pumpkin" is back!

Look who’s back in time for fall! Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin” (2016) is now on view outside in the Hirshhorn Plaza. Kusama’s lifelong interest in pumpkins was sparked by a childhood trip to a seed-harvesting ground with her grandfather - but will her “Pumpkin” spark yours? 🟠 The Hirshhorn is open daily to all, 10AM-5:30PM. Now with way, way more polka-dots. — Video credit: Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin” (2016) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Fiber-reinforced plastic. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts © YAYOI KUSAMA. Video by the Hirshhorn. [Video description: A quick pan up from lush grass to a giant yellow pumpkin covered in black polka-dots of varying sizes that accentuate the pumpkin’s organic grooves.]

Hirshhorn x Smithsonian Folkways

Sound on for frogs. Now, imagine those frog calls diced, looped, stretched, and playing around the Hirshhorn Plaza - which is what will happen tomorrow, Sat. Sept. 9, 1-4PM during Matmos's free performance. The innovative electronic music duo has reimagined the sounds of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings' catalog for #Folkways75, including recordings of junkyards, frogs, medical wonders, and more. Sample their audio alchemy live in the Hirshhorn Plaza, and check out their forthcoming album, “Return to Archive.” 🎶 Hop over tomorrow for the free performance. Learn more: https://s.si.edu/3KIw3lk — Video credit: Video courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Audio courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. [Video description: Gentle pans over the circular, concrete Hirshhorn Plaza beneath a blue sky, with the sound of croaking frogs.]

Sondra Perry, "Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation," 2016

Sondra Perry creates media installations addressing Black history and identity in digital worlds. In “Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation” (2016), a video plays across three screens mounted on an exercise bicycle. An animated avatar modeled after Perry delivers a monologue addressing the persistence of racism and sexism even in the supposedly disembodied virtual realm; as she speaks, she periodically glitches and crashes. Viewers who sit on the bike and turn its pedals find that their own strenuous but unproductive physical labor resonates with the avatar’s ruminations. 🚲 Bike and connect with Sondra Perry in the current exhibition “Put It This Way,” only at the Hirshhorn for one more week, through Mon, Sept. 4: https://s.si.edu/3N9MpFl — Image credits: Installation views of Sondra Perry's "Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation" (2016) in "Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection" at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Video and bicycle workstation; 09:05 min. Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2021. Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Photos by Ron Amstutz. [Video description: A red stationary bicycle with three screens mounted at eye level placed in front of a cobalt wall. The screens show a bald, human avatar from the neck up as they speak, their background changing.]

Hirshhorn Outdoor Sculpture Washing

It’s bath time! Check out how we wash our outdoor sculptures to keep them looking their best, then stop by the Hirshhorn Plaza to admire them in person - we’re open daily, 10AM-5:30PM. — Video courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. [Video description: Conservation interns work together to carefully wash large bronze sculptures outside in the Hirshhorn Plaza, using a long hose, large sponges, bath brushes, microfiber cloths, and buckets of soap and water.]

Hirshhorn Sculpture Washing

This isn’t how our sculptures keep cool, it’s how they keep clean! Stay tuned to learn more about how we keep the sculptures in our Plaza looking fresh no matter the weather. Hint: It involves sheep shampoo. — Video courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden . [Video description: An intern hoses down an outdoor, bronze sculpture of a slightly abstracted, seated woman.]

Final weekend of "One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection"

It’s your final weekend to become “One with Eternity” before the exhibition closes on Sunday, July 16. Over the last 15 months, the doors to infinity have been opened hundreds of thousands of times, revealing Yayoi Kusama’s dazzling visions of eternity to Museum visitors from around the world. 🔴 Passes are required for this immersive experience. Our final release of free, next-day passes will be tomorrow, Saturday, July 15 at noon ET through our website: https://s.si.edu/3JeXB0V — Video credit: Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden . [Video description: A showcase of Yayoi Kusama’s artwork, featuring a towering yellow pumpkin sculpture with black polka-dots, signed by Yayoi Kusama in 2016; an endless field of white, stuffed tubers covered in red polka-dots; and infinite floating black orbs with glowing, color-changing polka-dots.]

Baseera Khan: The Liberator closes July 16, 2023

FINAL WEEKEND: Your last chance to catch “Baseera Khan: The Liberator” is this Sun, July 16. To create the vivid details of “The Liberator” (2022), Baseera Khan scanned, manipulated, and 3-D printed a rendering of their own body and used locks of their own dark hair. Inspired by an 18th-century sculpture of the Buddhist deity Naro Dakini in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Khan’s dynamic work explores ongoing and global struggles for justice, as well as the complicated relationships between Western museums, capital, and cultural identity. ✨ Check out “Baseera Khan: The Liberator” for yourself through Sunday, July 16. — Video courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden [Video description: ‘The Liberator,' a red humanoid sculpture with its torso sliced diagonally by a neon acrylic sheet etched with swirls, its body parts jumbled in different directions, and its face screaming beneath a crown.]

Journey into "One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection."

10 DAYS: The doors of “One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection” will close one final time on Sunday, July 16. 🟡 Passes are required for this immersive experience. Learn more about reserving free, next-day passes and Hirshhorn Insider passes: https://s.si.edu/3LF8laZ — [Video description: Two people in a dark, mirrored room surrounded by an infinite number of huge, floating, black orbs glowing with big polka-dots that change colors.]

Artist Jennie C. Jones: On Art and Resonance

Join artist Jennie C. Jones and Hirshhorn curator Anne Reeve to explore how sound can be made visible and how histories can be embedded into seemingly simple forms. In a practice that spans painting, sculpture, works on paper, sound, and installation, Jones’ interdisciplinary work often engages multiple senses. She draws on unconventional materials to give visual expression to sound and to consider the unexplored intersections of abstract visual artists and black avant-garde sonic practitioners. She is both inspired by and stretches the limits of the graphic forms of musical notations and the principles of Minimalism, an art form characterized by a simplicity of objects and forms. For her acoustic paintings, as she calls them, she uses commercial acoustic panels and architectural felts that are typically used to minimize echoes and reverberations and slightly alters the surfaces with paint, complicating the otherwise spare and unmodulated fabric. Jones’ Light Gray with Middle C (variation #2) and Higher Resonance are on view in Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection at the Museum through Fall 2023.

These Art Pieces Celebrating Social Media are 🔥

After a night at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and an intense first commission, the artists of #TheExhibit return for their next challenge: make an artwork about the world’s love affair with social media. Their unique processes—rendered over seven hours—illuminate how social media is perceived. Samuel Hoi, president of Maryland Institute College of Art, and museum digital strategist Jia Jia Fei join lead judge, Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu, to pick the winning commission. Will you agree? Catch an all-new episode of #TheExhibit, tonight at 10/9c on MTV!

Artist Loie Hollowell: On Art and the Female Body

Join artist Loie Hollowell and Hirshhorn curator Betsy Johnson to explore the ways in which art can reflect on the confluence between the spiritual and temporal nature of the female form. Hollowell makes paintings that use vibrant, emotive colors and sacred geometric shapes to reflect on the powerful nature of the human body and, more specifically, the artist’s own experience of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum motherhood. To echo the weighty curves of ancient fertility figures, Hollowell attaches spherical forms to her canvases, turning paintings into sculptural objects. These forms often spiral and stretch, suggesting the cyclical nature of life-giving processes and the pressure and toll that are exerted on the female body during and after birth. Hollowell’s Boob Wheel (2019) is on view in Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection at the Museum through Fall 2023. SCHEDULE 7:50 pm EST | Zoom broadcast opens 8 pm EST | Loie Hollowell in conversation with Betsy Johnson ASL translation will be provided on Zoom, and CART (real-time captioning) will be provided across all platforms. If you have any questions about accessibility for this program, please email [email protected]. Image credit: Melissa Goodwin

Today’s the day: “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist” premieres tonight at 9PM ET on MTV! Tune in to meet artists Jamaal Barber, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Misha Kahn, Clare Kambhu, Baseera Khan, Jillian Mayer, and Jennifer Warren, and watch them transform their original ideas into innovative works of art. Plus, catch host Dometi Pongo, and artists Adam Pendleton and Kenny Schachter as guest judges. 📺 Watch with us: “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist” premieres Friday, March 3 at 9PM ET on MTV; and 10PM ET every week after. Episodes re-air on Smithsonian Channel, starting Tuesday, March 7 at 9PM ET. 📱 Don’t miss a beat: Follow Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, MTV, and Smithsonian Channel to keep up to date with this inspiring series and join the conversation using #TheExhibit. [Video description: Trailer for the upcoming TV docuseries 'The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist,' featuring seven artists working on paintings, prints, sculptures, multimedia works, and other artworks that address weekly themes.]

Artist Tony Lewis: On Art and Poetry

Artist Tony Lewis and Hirshhorn curator Betsy Johnson discuss how drawing and poetry can be tools to challenge important issues of our time. In an ever-expanding engagement with drawing, Tony Lewis harnesses the medium of graphite powder to confront social and political topics, including race, power, communication, and labor. Lewis’ Anthology 2014–2016, a suite of thirty-four original collage-poems, is the focus of a forthcoming catalogue. Exhibited at the Hirshhorn for the first time in its entirety in Spring 2018, and now part of the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection, this series of evocative black-and-white works draws on an unlikely source: Calvin and Hobbes comic books. Lewis, part of an exciting generation of artists working to collapse the boundaries between disparate art forms, has quickly established himself in the contemporary art world by forming a distinct visual vocabulary that integrates poetry and text with the properties of abstraction. His monochromatic drawings pull from various visual and written sources, ranging from the personal to the political. Separating, rearranging, and erasing text, he shifts the way we read to open up new and unexpected meanings. Tony Lewis: Anthology 2014-2016 features essays by internationally renowned artist Theaster Gates and Betsy Johnson, as well as a visual essay by artist Karl Haendel. Get your own copy! The book is available for purchase online through the Smithsonian Store and in person through the Hirshhorn store. SCHEDULE 7:50 pm EST | Zoom broadcast opens 8 pm EST | Tony Lewis in conversation with Betsy Johnson ASL translation will be provided on Zoom and CART (real-time captioning) will be provided across all platforms. If you have any questions about accessibility for this program, please email [email protected]. ABOUT THE ARTIST Tony Lewis’ work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions including Anthology 2014-2016, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2

Picture yourself outside @nicolasparty largest-ever artwork, “Draw the Curtain” (2021). The four-story, 829-foot commission is the largest object ever displayed @hirshhorn. We love it so much, we’re wearing this timeless outfit through the next few seasons. We think our “Party dress” works day to night, and as you can see, we’re not alone. Nicolas Party’s “Draw the Curtain” is on view, 24-7 at the national museum of modern art. 📸 credits: Thank you for tagging #hirshhorn: @1001chic @ithomson75 @ljgoetz @micheleegan2 @dsaywell @horizonmanifest @jonkatz5 @misspriyap @jamestearly @benrice68 @detectedbeats @catherinesatterlee @willcopps @the_baltimore_dc_freeroamer @annemarchandstudios @o_l_e_n_k_a_3.0 @brownbagdc @bluemarblereview @coasty410 @minescolasantti @victory_88.3 @nmhnldc @koob13 @dsaywell @deetotheltothedee @dccitygirl @carriegdc @adam_brockett @nicolettarusconi_artistmia @dc.chasers @lbianchini_ @one4themany fitzstudio Image description: Selfies and snaps by Hirshhorn-goers of Nicolas Party’s monumental building wrap. The image printed on the scrim wrapping the façade of the Museum’s concrete “donut” features the calm grey-faced beauties coolly peeking across the National Mall and surrounds between primary colored drapes.

Set your alarm. To mark the arrival of her sculpture “Light of Freedom” (2020) in the #Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden on the National Mall, artist Abigail DeVille has composed “WAKE UP: Liberation Call at Dawn,” a site-specific performance taking place this Friday, Oct. 15 at 7:30am. @victoriouspurple is working in collaboration with vocal and sound healing artist @jadelemc; multigenerational West African drum and dance ensemble @farafinakan, and @thejogoproject, a jazz and go-go ensemble. The performance will last approximately 45 minutes; “Light of Freedom” will remain on display Oct. 15-April 17, 2022. Image description: Text panels and images of artist Abigail DeVille concentrating on the installation of her sculpture, “Light of Freedom” invite everyone to “WAKE UP: Liberation Call at Dawn,” Friday, Oct. 15 at 7:30am in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. 📸: Abigail DeVille installing “Light of Freedom” @hirshhorn. Photo by Allysa Lisbon.

(AT HOME) IN AND AROUND AMERICA: ARTIST TALK WITH CATHERINE OPIE

When you think of America, what do you see? For more than three decades, renowned photographer Catherine Opie has turned a careful and attentive eye towards the imaging of the United States, its citizens and communities, traditions and landscapes. Opie travels widely across the country to engage traditional ideas of the American experience while simultaneously upending and expanding conventional ideals and identities. Her portraits—from her earliest images of gay, lesbian, and transgender friends taken in the early 1990s to now—elevate people from all walks of life to the status of a Renaissance portrait, and redefine both notions of beauty and of who deserves to be on a gallery wall. Her recent work often foregrounds the political sphere, and has taken a critical stance on major issues such as climate change, gun control, and immigration. She has also been a leading voice in criticism surrounding equal representation in museum collections, and played a decisive role in recent and contentious public debate about the sale of a historic work by Diego Rivera by the San Francisco Art Institute. Opie’s remarkable 2009 series documenting President Barack Obama’s first inauguration is part of the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection and was recently on view in the exhibition Manifesto: Art x Agency. On the heels of America’s most recent transfer of presidential power, Opie joins Hirshhorn associate curator Anne Reeve to revisit her 2009 series and discuss the role of photography in both creating and undoing our sense of self-hood—as both individuals and citizens.

Talking to Our Time is back! The @hirshhorn Wednesday series returns with a fresh line-up of 11 exciting artists for real time conversations with curators. We’re kicking off with Charles Gaines on March 17 at 7 pm ET. As ever, it’s free and Zoom attendees are welcome to ask questions. The spring season also features Diana Al-Hadid, Teresita Fernández, Charles Gaines, Rachel Harrison, Deana Lawson, Riva Lehrer, Catherine Opie, Jacolby Satterwhite, Michelle Stuart, Danh Vō, and Anicka Yi. Register on our website. #HirshhornInsideOut