iHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenNational Mall
Big Things for Big Rooms
Ten room-swallowing installations trace immersive art from the late 1960s on — Flavin, Gilliam, Irwin, Pape and Long, then Chan, Eliasson, Finch, Johnson and Rottenberg. Five shown here for the first time.
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The first room holds a single painting: Sam Gilliam's Light Depth, 1969, a 75-foot canvas of colour-washed acrylic with no stretcher and no frame. Artforum's Noelle Bodick compared it to Princess Di's bridal train, bunching and spreading across the corner of the room.
Ten installations follow on the third floor, one per room. In Olafur Eliasson's darkened room a rotating glass ring throws a rainbow across the walls. Richard Long's line of marble runs 47 feet. Next to Rashid Johnson's thirty-foot tower of palms and potted plants, the one fern on your Columbia Heights windowsill looks underqualified.
Bodick found Dan Flavin's tubes and Long's stones lost in their big rooms, and said some pieces are so subtle they could be missed. Admission is free, Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5:30pm, Mondays from noon.
Editor's pick
Sam Gilliam's Light Depth, a 75-foot unframed canvas, fills the first room on its own; Artforum compared it to Princess Di's bridal train. Ten installations, one per room, though the same critic found Flavin and Long lost in the space.
Look for
Sam Gilliam, Light Depth
A 75-foot unframed canvas of colour-washed acrylic that sags and bunches across the corner of the entry room.
Olafur Eliasson, Round Rainbow
A spotlight hits a suspended, rotating glass ring in a dark room, and a rainbow drifts across the walls.
Rashid Johnson, The Changes
A thirty-foot pyramid of stacked crates holding palm fronds and potted plants, in an otherwise bare gallery.
Richard Long, Carrara Line
A line of white marble stones laid across a large windowless gallery, 47 feet 6 inches long.
Paul Chan, 3rd Light
A silent 14-minute projection of shadows and objects tumbling across a table, in the last room.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want bold spectacle: critic Noelle Bodick found several rooms so subtle the works could be missed.
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Image credits
8
- Big Things for Big RoomsHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
- From the Louvre: Masterpieces of Islamic ArtCourtesy of National Museum of Asian Art
- A Museum in the MakingAndrew Jameson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenGryffindor, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- National Air and Space Museumajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- National Museum of Asian ArtDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- National Museum of Natural Historyajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- National Gallery of Artajay_suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0