Clifford Ross: Digital Waves

Ended17 January 2026 – 18 October 2026Free

This exhibition has ended.

A 23-foot screen under the West Building's Rotunda dome, where Clifford Ross builds breaking ocean waves out of millions of glowing pixels.

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On now All of October 2026

You walk into the West Building's Rotunda and the fountain under the dome is splashing in front of a 23-foot screen of breaking surf. The water in the basin is real. The waves behind it are built from millions of pixels, each tied to an intensely bright LED bulb, and Ross calls the result a "light storm".

Ross has been working on the sea for 30 years. For his Hurricane Waves photographs he waded into hurricane surf with a camera, tethered to an assistant on the shore. Here he worked with technologists on custom methods for generating the video, and the Gallery ties its shifting, abstract shapes to the abstract expressionist painters Ross counts as his main inspirations.

This is one work on one screen, in a room most West Building visitors pass through anyway, so it costs you little to stop. Entry is free, no passes are needed, and it closes on 18 October.

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A 23-foot screen under the West Building's Rotunda dome, where Clifford Ross builds breaking ocean waves out of millions of glowing pixels. The closest surf to the National Mall.

Look for

Real water against digital water
Look at the Rotunda's fountain with the screen behind it: the installation was placed so the basin's moving water plays against Ross's computer-generated waves.
The 23-foot wall of waves
Watch the surf break across millions of LED pixels, shifting shapes that mimic the random movement of real waves and drift toward abstract painting.