Past Exhibitions

Speculative Forms

Drawing upon the Hirshhorn’s expansive sculpture collection, this exhibition collapses such conventional art historical divisions as figuration vs. abstraction; volumetric vs. stereometric sculpture; still vs. kinetic forms; and illusionary vs. unitary objects.

June 16, 2014 – April 17, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Part File Score

"Part File Score" (2014) is a recently aquired large-scale multimedia installation by Susan Philipsz. The installation is based on the life and work of film composer Hanns Eisler, a German Jew who immigratred to the United States after his music was banned by the Nazis, only to become an early victim of the infamous Hollywood blacklist of supposed Coummunist sympathizers.

January 22, 2016 – April 10, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Directions: Shana Lutker: Le 'NEW' Monocle, Chapters 1-3

New sculptural work by contemporary American artist Shana Lutker based on historic fistfights involving surrealist artists.

October 29, 2015 – February 15, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York

This exhibition brings together more than 100 three-dimensional works created by more than 20 artists.

October 29, 2015 – February 15, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Sergio Caballero

The exhibition consists of a single 25-minute film, “Ancha es Castilla” or “N’importe quoi” (2014). These titles loosely translate to “Anything Goes” and “Whatever,” among other renderings, but the artist prefers not to provide translations.

August 24, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Le Onde: Waves of Italian Influence (1914-1971)

This exhibition of nearly 20 works from the museum’s collection follows Italian contributions to the transnational evolution of abstraction, through movements and tendencies such as futurism, spatialism, op art, and kinetic art.

August 22, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Dan Flavin

Two iconic works by Dan Flavin (American, b. New York, 1933–1996) from the collection are on view. “untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection)” (1974) and “‘monument’ for V. Tatlin” (1967) are examples of two of the artist’s most renowned series, the “barriers” and the “monuments,” respectively.

March 11, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum
Shirin Neshat: Facing History

In her mesmerizing films and photographs, Shirin Neshat examines the nuances of power and identity in the Islamic world.

May 18, 2015 – September 20, 2015

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Risto-Pekka Blom

Media artist Risto-Pekka Blom (Finnish, b. 1970, Mikkeli; lives and works in Tampere) is featured in the newest exhibition in the Black Box space. The exhibition consists of a single work, “Kurdrjavka [Little Ball of Fur]” (2013). It is the first U.S. museum presentation of the artist’s work.

April 27, 2015 – August 9, 2015

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Ragnar Kjartansson

At the 2013 Venice Biennale, Kjartansson took over a waterside post and assembled a floating concert with a brass band aboard a small, vintage-style wooden boat. What few knew at the time, however, was that the artist was filming the proceedings from a different perspective; the resulting footage is the core of "S.S. Hangover."

October 28, 2014 – April 19, 2015

Hirshhorn Museum
Days of Endless Time

The galleries will be transformed into a compelling refuge where visitors enter a poetic, drifting, reflective realm that Jorge Luis Borges once characterized in a phrase, days of endless time…

October 16, 2014 – April 6, 2015

Hirshhorn Museum
Salvatore Scarpitta: Traveler

Featuring key additions to the Hirshhorn's collection, this is the first solo presentation of Salvatore Scarpitta's work at an American museum in over a decade, and the first ever on the East Coast.

July 17, 2014 – January 11, 2015

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Oliver Laric

Video installation showing recent work by contemporary Austrian artist Oliver Laric.

May 30, 2014 – October 5, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Sitebound: Photography from the Collection

Works from the collection extend the concept of documentary photography in ways that allow for imagination and conjecture.

June 16, 2014 – September 1, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Directions: Jeremy Deller: English Magic

Video installation by Turner Prize-winning British artist Jeremy Deller is an idiosyncratic collective portrait of Britishness asking how consumerism, technology, and the new monotony of work have altered the experience of nature, culture, and history.

February 7, 2014 – August 24, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Gravity's Edge

Exhibition of works by Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Anne Truitt, and others trace the exploration of the force of gravity and new perceptions of the edge in the process and understanding of postwar art.

February 7, 2014 – June 15, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950

This ground-breaking exhibition explores the theme of destruction in international contemporary visual culture.

October 24, 2013 – May 26, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Santiago Sierra and Jorge Galindo

View video installation by 2 contemporary Spanish artists who combine “found” audio and fabricated visual elements to resonate beyond specific national associations, questioning the nature of political power.

February 14, 2014 – May 18, 2014

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: Gerco de Ruijter

View Crop, Gerco de Ruijter's stop-motion animation of the cultivated landscape that is identifiable yet abstract and is set to a stuttering, hypnotic score by Michel Banabila.

August 12, 2013 – November 12, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Directions: Jennie C. Jones: Higher Resonance

Discover Jones's audio collages and the connections between art and music.

May 16, 2013 – October 27, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Peter Coffin: Here & There

Emphasizing his chameleon-like virtuosity working with different media, look for Peter Coffin's artworks throughout the museum.

June 29, 2013 – October 6, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913 to the Present

See how artists over the last 100 years have used objects -- the fragments and detritus in the world around them -- to challenge traditional art media.

April 18, 2013 – September 8, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Black Box: DEMOCRACIA

View DEMOCRACIA's video project Ser y Durar [To Be and to Last] about a group of traceurs performing parkour in a Madrid cemetery.

October 29, 2012 – August 4, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Out of the Ordinary

Discover how the processes of copying, faking, and duplicating as strategic artistic invention can result in objects that are both recognizable and strange.

February 4, 2013 – May 27, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum
Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads

See Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's monumental outdoor installation showcasing the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac.

April 19, 2012 – March 17, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum

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