Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads

Now - February 24, 2013
Outdoors on the Plaza

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s monumental outdoor installation showcases twelve 10-foot-tall bronze animal heads representing the signs of the Chinese zodiac. Placed around the perimeter of the fountain in the museum’s central plaza, these sculptures are re-envisioned and enlarged versions of the original 18th-century heads that were designed during the Qing dynasty for the fountain-clock of the Yuanming Yuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness), an imperial retreat outside Beijing, which were pillaged in 1860 by invading Europeans. This installation complements Perspectives: Ai Weiwei (May 12, 2012-April 7, 2013) at the Sackler Gallery of Art and Ai Weiwei: According to What? (October 4, 2012-February 24, 2013) at the Hirshhorn Museum. 

Related catalogue: $20 paper; $49.95 cloth

Doug Aitken: Song 1

Now - May 20, 2012
Museum's exterior facade in the evenings from sunset to midnight (rain or shine)

Internationally renowned artist Doug Aitken (American, b. 1968) transforms the Hirshhorn's iconic circular building into "liquid architecture" using approximately 11 high-definition projectors. This site-specific installation seamlessly blends imagery to envelop the entire facade of the Gordon Bunshaft-designed structure with a 360-degree panorama that makes the museum recede into cinematic space. Exploding film conventions, the work cannot be seen from any single perspective or at any single moment in time. Structured around the song "I Only Have Eyes for You," the 35-minute video loops continously.

Note: The usual viewing areas for this exhibition will be ticketed areas for an evening event on Friday, May 11. Visitors will still be able to view this exhibition from afar.

Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space

Now - August 12, 2012
Level 2

The focus of this exhibition is to explain the international light-and-space art movement of the mid- and late 20th century. The exhibition consists of large-scale installations by five artists from South America who created landmark works in the 1950s and 1960s:

• Lucio Fontana (1899 Argentina - 1968 Italy): Neon Structure for the IX Triennale of Milan
• Julio Le Parc (1928 Argentina - active France): Light in Movement
• Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923 Venezuela - active France): Chromosaturation
• Jesús Rafael Soto (1923 Venezuela - 2005 France): Blue Penetrable BBL
• Hélio Oiticica (Brazilian, 1937-1980), collaborated with Neville D'Almedia (Brazilian): Cosmococa No. 1: Trashiscapes

By developing large-scale, multimedia constructions of light and color, these Latin Americans engaged viewers more actively in a physical process of exploring the possibilities of visual and spatial perceptions. Although Fontana, Le Parc, Cruz-Diez, Soto, and Oiticica exerted considerable influence on their contemporaries and on subsequent generations, their works have often been overlooked in publications and exhibitions. Suprasensorial underscores their innovative contributions and acknowledges their seminal role in the ongoing, global light-and-space tradition. The five installations -- which have heretofore been known only to a small number of people -- create enveloping optical effects that overwhelm and transform sensory experience.