"Immersed in art" is not a figure of speech at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. It sums up the visitors' experience at the latest exhibition Big Things for Big Rooms. The straightforward title describes ten installations set in a succession of galleries on the third floor of the museum, a collection of diverse works spanning from the sixties until today, representing art movements from color field to land art and more.
An explosion of colors at the entrance comes from a huge painting-sculpture,
Light Depth (1969) from
Sam Gilliam. A commission from the
Corcoran Gallery of Art, it is a quintessential work of the artist's
Drape paintings and a fitting start to the exhibition. Sam Gilliam born in Tupelo, Mississippi, spent his adult life in Washington where he became a prominent member of the District's arts community and was nicknamed the "Dean" in recognition of his influence. In contrast,
Untitled (1969) from
Robert Irwin is a sober piece made of shadows created by four white spotlights shining through a frosted clear disk, drawing organic shapes on the white wall. The flower-like pattern reaches a perfection found in nature with a dark band in the center like a pistil. The recently deceased artist (1928-2023) was part of the
Light and Space movement prominent in California in the sixties and seventies. The following installation,
Carrara Line (1985) from
Richard Long could be a model for a land art piece set in the great outdoors: the narrow rocky white path running almost the whole length of the gallery invites the visitor for a walking meditation. The pure line of Carrara marble enhanced by the grey floor may lead to nowhere or to eternity. Minimalism and light art define the work from
Dan Flavin (1933-1996) represented by
"monument" for V. Tatlin (1967), one of the thirty-nine versions of the series started in 1964 ending in 1990, tribute to a beacon of the
Constructivist movement Vladimir Tatlin. Set at floor level along the wall, the reductive neon sculpture splashes white light reflecting on the shiny ground. A blinding white,
Théia 1, A (1979/2025) from
Lygia Pape is a small piece representative of her
Ttéia series. The ethereal corner piece made of tenuous gold threads seems to appear and disappear in a shifting interaction with the viewer walking by. A monumental spidery installation from the same series
Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025) was recently on view at
Bourse de Commerce/Pinault Collection for her first solo show in France, appropriately titled
Weaving Space. Lygia Pape was a prominent member of the
neo-concrete movement in Brazil. The natural light coming through a row of windows and the view of the neoclassical buildings across the Mall compete with
Cloud (H2O) (2006), the installation from
Spencer Finch suspended from the ceiling of the vast "Lerner Room". The ninety-five "water molecules" (white light bulbs arranged in a
horizontal “Y” shape, with trios composed of two smaller bulbs and one large bulb
connected by black metal rods as described in the brochure) are engineered to form a cloud-like construction easily mistaken for a decorative lightning. In contrast,
Moon Dust (Apollo 17) (2009) brought dreams and poetry to the lobby of the
Baltimore Museum of Art for several years. Installations can be overshadowed by their surroundings.
Following the intermission, part two of the exhibition starts with
Round Rainbow (2005), a work from
Olafur Eliasson set in a smaller dim gallery. Through a machinery (tripod, light, glass ring) easily disregarded, the magician of light creates fleeting shadows of orbs, spirals, volutes, resolving in rainbows, mirages on the walls, ways to reach a realm beyond time and space. The quiet visit is interrupted by loud sounds coming from a huge wooden shipping crate in the next gallery, its opening facing away. Inside, an absurdist video with a humorous twist features an endless loop of "chew, pass, wipe, pass back, receive, pack" between female protagonists in a satire about human physical labor and female exploitation in a capitalist economy. The commodity is human sweat and saliva, the final product, lemon-scented wipes. Boxes of "Tropical Breeze", their commercial name, are stacked high outside and inside the container, ready to be shipped. The installation
Tropical Breeze (2004) from
Mika Rottenberg is more than twenty years old and may not sustain the passage of time in a new age of robots. The refreshing site specific installation from
Rashid Johnson is like a tropical island made of a metal skeleton filled with an exuberant greenery, homey props, and decorated with minimalist white light fixtures.
The Changes (2025) offers a healing place, a refuge where the visitor can be vulnerable, a home. The conceptual piece can leave you indifferent or filled with empathy triggered by the live plants,
the artist's goal. The last "big thing" is
Third Light (2006) from a series
The 7 Lights (2005-2007) about the seven-day creation narrated in the Bible.
Paul Chan's installation combines sculptural elements, a rustic wooden table on sawhorses in the middle of the room, and animation with shadow silhouettes of objects and human figures floating on rectangular puddles of varied colored lights coming from a projector. The third day of the creation is about the apparition of life on earth. The fourteen-minute show leaves plenty of time to meditate on light or its absence, on enlightenment or lack of it.
The ten works require more than the average
thirty seconds usually allotted by visitors to view a piece of art. The selected diverse installations require a total physical and mental immersion to be fully taken in.
Slow Art Day is April 11 this year. Here the only way to interiorize the art is a slow visit. At the end of the show, a small comfy room with deep armchairs is an invitation to browse through books and read quotes from each artist posted on the walls like Robert Irwin's "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees" or Dan Flavin's: "I am not interested in creating objects, but rather in creating experiences."
photographs by the author:-Rashid Johnson "The Changes" (2025
-Mika Rottenberg "Tropical Breeze" (2004)
-Sam Gilliam "Light Depth" (1969)
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