Art surrounds you at the Hirshhorn. The museum’s eye-catching, cylindrical architecture encompasses a spectacular center fountain and is home to the nation’s premier collection of international modern and contemporary works of art. Open since 1974, the museum is named for Joseph H. Hirshhorn (1889-1981), a renowned collector who donated more than 6,000 paintings and sculptures—one of the largest bequests of artworks ever made to the Smithsonian Institution.

Exhibitions
Plaza Level

The Museum Store, located near the entrance, is filled with an intriguing assortment of art books, gifts, posters and artist-designed jewelry. A kids’ corner is packed with toys, puzzles and activity books.

Lower Level

“Black Box” In recognition of the growing significance of video and film as an artistic medium, the museum’s theater screens works by some of the most prestigious filmmakers and artists in the world.

Level Two

Special temporary exhibitions rotate approximately every four months. These large exhibitions explore a different grouping of works gathered around a theme or individual artist, and provide new ways of looking at the museum’s diverse holdings, as well as artworks from other collections. These shows often include rarely seen works, as well as favorite masterpieces.

Level Three

“Selected Works From the Collections” These galleries highlight the museum’s world-renowned collections. Several galleries offer an in-depth look at important artists of the 20th century: the groundbreaking mobiles of Alexander Calder; a chronicle of Willem de Kooning’s Expressionist style as it evolved during his 50-year career; the abstract, richly textured creations by Clyfford Still; and the shaped canvases of Ellsworth Kelly.

“Sculpture” The museum’s sculpture collection includes signature masterpieces by Henri Matisse, David Smith, Louise Nevelson and Constantin Brancusi.

On View

“Black Box: Chris Chong Chan Fui” (April 19-Aug. 1). In Chong’s short film, “Block B,” drama unfolds as the camera captures the night and day activities on the floors of a huge apartment complex in Malaysia, home to Indian expatriates working on temporary contracts in Kuala Lumpur.

“ColorForms” (March 11-January 2011) Lower Level. A presentation of some of the many ways that contemporary artists use abstract form to examine color’s possibilities. In addition to works by Fred Sandback, Paul Sharits, and Mark Rothko, the exhibit includes Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen from Hazelnut (1998–2000). The work, a field of yellow hazelnut pollen, appears to hover above the ground. Also see James Turrell’s Milk Run (1996), a fluorescent-light installation that challenges perception; and Anish’s Kapoor’s At the Hub of Things (1987), a large, conical sculpture covered in blue pigment are also on view.

“Yves Klein” (May 20-Sept. 12) Level Two. The exhibition examines the artist’s life and work from the mid-1950s to his untimely death at age 34 in 1962. A composer, judo master and performance artist, Klein was a multifaceted talent who believed in the transformative power of art. This is the first American retrospective in nearly 30 years of this highly influential French artist’s career.

“Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008” (Oct. 21-Jan. 16, 2011) Level Two. Since his first exhibition at age 13, the Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca has forged a distinctive path as an artist, creating visually compelling works that reflect his intense and often ambivalent relationship to his primary medium: painting. “Guillermo Kuitca: Everything” is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work in the United States in more than ten years, and is co-organized by the Hirshhorn; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; and the Miami Art Museum.

Download exclusive interviews with the artists. Free podcasts are available at hirshhorn.si.edu.

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