Hirshhorn Reveals First Acquisitions for Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Redesigned Sculpture Garden Ahead of October Reopening
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is offering an early glimpse of what visitors can expect when its long-anticipated sculpture garden reopens in October: a newly calibrated mix of contemporary voices set within a major redesign by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948).
On March 25, the Washington, D.C. museum announced the first round of acquisitions destined for the overhauled outdoor space, naming works by Mark Grotjahn, Raven Halfmoon, Lauren Halsey, Izumi Kato, Liz Larner, Woody De Othello, Chatchai Puipia, and Pedro Reyes. Taken together, the lineup reads as a statement of intent: the garden will continue to acknowledge the institution’s modernist foundations while making a more explicit case for the present.
Several of the newly announced works underscore that balancing act. Woody De Othello’s sculpture, described as a crumpled box fan, transforms an everyday household object into something closer to a public monument, folding in associations of air, heat, and memory. Mark Grotjahn, widely known for his paintings, is contributing a bronze “mask” that began as a discarded cardboard box, a shift that turns the provisional into the enduring.
Lauren Halsey’s contribution is pointedly civic in its address. Her column is wrapped in signage drawn from South Central Los Angeles and topped with a portrait of her grandmother, a direct challenge to conventional ideas of commemoration in the symbolic landscape of the National Mall.
Other works extend the garden’s cultural and formal range. Raven Halfmoon’s stacked stone figure draws on Caddo traditions and references the ornamental regalia worn by female Caddo dancers. Izumi Kato’s painted aluminum form is described as channeling animist storytelling. Pedro Reyes’s “Tonatiuh” (2023) began with a boulder from the hills of Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano; carved from volcanic stone, it nods to the sun god named in its title and reflects the artist’s ongoing dialogue with techniques associated with pre-Columbian art and Mexican modernism.
The museum also highlighted Chatchai Puipia’s “Wish You Were Here” (2008), a monumental bronze gifted by collectors Aey Phanachet and Roger Evans in honor of the Hirshhorn’s 50th anniversary. Liz Larner’s “6” (2010–11), meanwhile, continues her exploration of the “X” motif through two bright, interlocking forms — one crumpled, the other smooth and linear — that twist into a tense, graphic configuration.
All of these works will be situated within Sugimoto’s redesign, which has been underway since 2022. The museum has described the project as the most significant change to the Hirshhorn campus since it opened in 1974. Alongside the new acquisitions, the overhaul includes widened entrances, additional shade and seating, and a rethinking of circulation through the garden.
With the October reopening approaching, the first acquisitions suggest a sculpture garden conceived not simply as an outdoor annex to the museum, but as a public-facing argument about what — and who — belongs in the nation’s most visible cultural corridor.
