Exhibition of large scale contemporary art at Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum presents “Big Things for Big Rooms,” an exhibition tracing the development of immersive, large-scale artworks since the late 1960s. The exhibition of 10 artworks—five on view for the first time at the Museum— is drawn largely from the Hirshhorn’s collection. Organized by the Hirshhorn’s head curator, Evelyn C. Hankins, with the support of curatorial assistant CJ Greenhill Caldera, “Big Things for Big Rooms” will be on view from November 21, 2025, through July 4, 2027.
“Big Things for Big Rooms” will offer a multisensorial investigation of how artists create installation works that expand the boundaries of an artwork and the role of the visitor.
The exhibition is organized into two parts. The first introduces the development of “Environments,” expansive installations by pioneering artists such as Robert Irwin, whose work defined the Light and Space movement, and land artist Richard Long. The second half demonstrates how contemporary artists like Paul Chan, Olafur Eliasson and Mika Rottenberg are expanding upon these foundational ideas in different ways, often using everyday materials.
“This exhibition connects the profound creativity of the 1960s to the contemporary artists who are reshaping our sense of the world and our place in it,” Museum Director Melissa Chiu said. “Presented as a continuum from ‘Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960,’ which inaugurated our 50th-anniversary season, ‘Big Things for Big Rooms’ manifests these essential art-historical developments while demonstrating the significance of installation art in the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection.”
Rooted in artist and critic Allan Kaprow’s groundbreaking 1958 concept of “Environments,” which he defined as artworks that require visitors to actively engage with or even complete them, “Big Things for Big Rooms” begins with the Hirshhorn’s inaugural presentation of Sam Gilliam’s “Light Depth” (1969). Gilliam experimented with dynamic, color-washed canvases, or “Drapes,” removing them from their stretchers and allowing their forms to change in response to each presentation. Extending 75 feet, the sweeping, frameless painting, long considered to be Gilliam’s most important “Drape,” spills from the wall inside the Museum’s first gallery, blurring the boundaries among painting, sculpture and installation art.
Following “Light Depth” are other pioneering works, including Dan Flavin’s “‘monument’ for V. Tatlin” (1967), an arrangement of fluorescent fixtures that deploys light to define the space and involve the visitor. Also on view is Lygia Pape’s “Ttéia 1, A” (1979/2025), a geometric installation of shimmering metallic threads that anticipates the individual’s movement within the gallery.
As the exhibition unfolds, its focus shifts toward contemporary global artists, including Spencer Finch and Eliasson, who are envisioning immersive art for the 21st century. Highlights include recent Hirshhorn acquisitions such as “Tropical Breeze” (2004) by Mika Rottenberg, a gallery-filling shipping container that functions as a screening room, and a recent site-responsive installation by Rashid Johnson, an assembly of objects of personal and cultural resonance (including live plants, books, ceramics and shea butter) positioned within a minimalist sculptural framework that can be further activated by gatherings, performances and reflection.
The exhibition concludes with Paul Chan’s “3rd Light” (2006), a mesmerizing choreography of digital projection, shadows and objects exploring themes of transcendence, creation and cyclical time.
About the Hirshhorn
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the national museum of modern and contemporary art and a leading voice for 21st-century art and culture. Part of the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn is located prominently on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Its holdings encompass one of the most important collections of postwar American and European art in the world.
The Hirshhorn presents groundbreaking exhibitions and offers an array of public programs on the art of our time—free to all.
The Hirshhorn Museum is open Mondays noon–5:30 pm and Tuesdays–Sundays 10 am–5:30 pm (except Dec. 25). For more information, visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu.
