{"id":820466,"date":"2026-11-01T05:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T05:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820466\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T05:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T05:36:27","slug":"after-seven-years-hirshhorn-museum-opens-hiroshi-sugimoto-designed-sculpture-garden-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820466\/","title":{"rendered":"After seven years, Hirshhorn Museum opens Hiroshi Sugimoto-designed sculpture garden – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden<\/a> opened in 1974 in Washington, DC, The New York Times called it \u201cthe capital\u2019s newest cultural treasure\u201d. Likening the Hirshhorn to a Ren\u00e9 Magritte<\/a> picture, reporters drew out the \u201cjuxtaposition of man and nature with architecture\u201d, the seamless melding of light and form, indoors and out, that sets apart its collection of Modern and contemporary art.<\/p>\n

On 31 October, the Hirshhorn is scheduled to unveil a new cultural treasure: its $68m renovated sculpture garden. The project has been years in the making, designed by the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto<\/a>\u2014who also redesigned the museum\u2019s lobby in 2018. The reorganised 1.3-acre space, with its 30,000 new plants and trees, draws on the architect Gordon Bunshaft<\/a>\u2019s original design. This is part of a broader transformation at the museum, including renovations to the plaza and building infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Featuring 60 works\u201421 of them from the 1974 installation\u2014the renovated garden includes five entrances, east and west overlooks and an underground passageway of stainless steel. Sugimoto describes its mirrored finish as \u201creflecting the garden and the people moving through it, an experience in itself\u2014one that is continually transformed by the interplay of light, nature and the visitors\u201d.<\/p>\n

I decided a Japanese dry-stone wall would serve as a symbolic link between the ancient and the modern <\/p>\n

Hiroshi Sugimoto<\/p>\n

The walkways and alcoves are delineated using stacked-stone walls, each hand-selected and arranged by the artist. \u201cBunshaft was deeply influenced by the stone gardens of medieval Japan,\u201d Sugimoto tells The Art Newspaper. \u201cInspired by this, I decided a Japanese dry-stone wall would serve as a symbolic link between the ancient and the modern, providing the perfect backdrop for the museum\u2019s Modernist sculptures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The garden\u2019s opening follows years of controversy. Sugimoto\u2019s early vision for the space was met with criticism. In 2021, Charles A. Birnbaum (the president and chief executive of the Cultural Landscape Foundation<\/a>) said that the stacked-stone plan \u201cfundamentally disrupts<\/a>\u201d the garden\u2019s Modernist design and the \u201cartistic intent\u201d of Bunshaft and the landscape architect Lester Collins.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Hirshhorn\u2019s revamped garden, redesigned by Hiroshi Sugimoto Photo: Rick Coulby, courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden<\/p>\n

Adjustments to Sugimoto\u2019s initial design were made five years ago, according to the Hirshhorn, after a public consultation process as well as meetings with the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. In 2022, the museum hosted a groundbreaking ceremony<\/a> with Jill Biden. \u201cI was amazed by the backlash,\u201d Sugimoto said at the time.<\/p>\n

Today, Birnbaum stresses that the Hirshhorn\u2019s \u201clandscape architecture is an art form\u201d and urges the museum to \u201cafford it the same curatorial oversight, care and respect as the rest of the material collection\u201d.<\/p>\n

A sense of calm<\/p>\n

Sugimoto\u2019s practice is meditative, rooted in a close study of the natural world. \u201cThere is an 11th-century Japanese garden manual, Sakuteiki, which tells us to \u2018listen to the voices of the stones\u2019,\u201d he says. Each stone has its own character, weight and direction. He adds: \u201cMy task is not simply to place it, but to discover where it already wants to be; precision comes from listening carefully enough to find that inevitable position.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sense of balance is felt throughout the garden. With benches for quiet reflection and shaded, out-of-the-way recesses, the lawns encourage deep focus, an attentiveness to and a delight in the play of forms. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about looking at art,\u201d says Aaron Seeto, the Hirshhorn\u2019s deputy director, \u201cbut about looking at it as the garden itself is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sculpture in the space is arranged chronologically. The east garden includes a cast of Auguste Rodin<\/a>\u2019s poignant The Burghers of Calais (1884-89), its six figures weighed down and their necks bound in a darkened procession. Nearby is Henri Matisse<\/a>\u2019s The Backs I-IV (1909-31), a series of abstracted nudes in bronze relief, their angular silhouettes catching the light.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Auguste Rodin\u2019s The Burghers of Calais (1884-89\/cast 1953-59) Photo: Rick Coulby, courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden<\/p>\n

Henry Moore<\/a>\u2019s King and Queen (1952-53) is one of five works by the artist on view. It depicts a pair of seated figures, their faces abstracted, the curve of their shoulders liquid smooth. \u201cJoseph Hirshhorn was one of Moore\u2019s closest friends and one of the most significant collectors of his work,\u201d says Godfrey Worsdale, the director of the Henry Moore Foundation<\/a>. (Joseph Hirshhorn owned 55 sculptures by Moore, and Hirshhorn\u2019s fourth marriage took place before a cast of the artist\u2019s Upright Motive No. 1: Glenkiln Cross.) Worsdale applauds the renovated garden for offering \u201cunfettered access to Moore\u2019s work for new generations\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the west garden, home to new commissions, stands Yoshitomo Nara<\/a>\u2019s Sentinels of Stillness series (2025)\u2014three monumental heads, fashioned from aluminium and coated in brilliant white paint. Following the T\u014dhoku earthquake and nuclear disaster in 2011, Nara found himself unable to paint and instead took to sculpting. The physicality of modelling clay served as a kind of healing for him.<\/p>\n

Liz Larner\u2019s 6 (2010-11), meanwhile, is a cuboid of stainless steel in deep ochre, lavender and white\u2014the tendril-like lines seeming to expand and contract as if suspended in air. The work is a kind of \u201cvariable in space\u201d, says Larner, who is absorbed by the mathematical concept of x (the unknown). Following in the tradition of the Surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim<\/a>, Larner explores the indefinable, \u201cthe variable of a variable, the changing perspectives that don\u2019t ossify\u201d.<\/p>\n

Comparably fluid is Raven Halfmoon\u2019s Dancing at Dusk (2024), a neighbouring work of cream, coppery-red and slate-grey travertine. Halfmoon, a citizen of the Caddo Nation, gestures to violence and strength, pairing the themes in a work of banded-stone\u2014her first in the medium\u2014trimmed with a line of crosses. There is a kind of solemnity to the piece, the composite visage resolute, meeting the world as it is.<\/p>\n

That pathos carries over to KAWS<\/a>\u2019s 14ft bronze SHELTER (2026), reminiscent of a mother and child\u2014their eyes crossed out, their modelling soft, even tender. It is a warm embrace, the two encircled by an overhanging elm tree.<\/p>\n

There is a stillness to the Hirshhorn\u2019s new garden space, a sense of calm in the otherwise fast-moving capital city. \u201cI hope people will experience a different sense of time in the garden,\u201d Sugimoto says. \u201cThe sculptures, stones, trees, water and the changing light all exist on different clocks. The garden allows us to slow our own clock enough to become aware of these differences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opened in 1974 in Washington, DC, The New York Times called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,947,1120,96,269256,269255,10748,10345,10552,56,54,55,2866],"class_list":["post-820466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-dc","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-hiroshi-sugimoto","tag-hirshhorn-museum-and-sculpture-garden","tag-museums","tag-museums-heritage","tag-sculpture","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}