The architect Gordon Bunshaft’s vision for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden must have sounded great on paper. Inspired by Japanese Zen gardens, the Pritzker Prize winner envisioned a spare serenity within which artworks could shine free of visual distractions. When the garden opened in 1974, however, it had about as much charm as the average emergency room. Sunken below street level and obscured behind concrete walls, the space was impenetrable to all but the most determined. Inside the Brutalist enclosure, there was little in the way of shade, comfort, or vegetation.

‘A Zen garden requires a vast space surrounded by greenery, within which a void is placed,’ the Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto tells Art Basel. ‘Because Bunshaft’s original garden consisted of only the void, without that surrounding greenery, it became a scorching hell in summer.’ A renovation by landscape architect Lester Collins introduced trees and grass, softening the stark expanses, but other problems persisted: there was poor drainage and scant room for strollers and wheelchairs. Too few of the 30 million annual visitors to the National Mall were tempted to venture inside.

‘That is where I came in,’ says Sugimoto.

In 2019, the Hirshhorn leadership announced that Sugimoto would lead a sweeping redesign that would remedy the garden’s structural issues and make it more inviting. When the garden reopens on October 31, visitors will find nearly 30,000 new plants and 60 artworks once completed, including monumental commissions by Berlin-based duo Elmgreen & Dragset and American artist Brian Donnelly, better known as KAWS. Sugimoto has widened the entrance to the National Mall, created more space for performance works, and introduced hand-stacked stone walls in the style of Japanese castles.

Sugimoto has a long history with the Hirshhorn. After the museum organized a retrospective of his work in 2006, the artist redesigned the lobby in 2018. He responds to questions about the garden with lapidary phrases that could be lines from a haiku. How did the garden’s proximity to the nation’s most prominent monuments and seats of power shape his approach? ‘To stand out without appearing to,’ he writes. ‘To suggest stillness amid the clamor.’

It is a challenging time for national museums in the United States. The current administration’s term began with measures targeting the Smithsonian Institution, the museum, education, and research complex to which the Hirshhorn belongs. These led to changes in exhibitions, artworks, and staff members promoting diversity and inclusion. Visitors will encounter a wide range of artistic perspectives in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden, offering a galvanizing reminder of the power of polyphony.

Art Basel spoke to five artists with works in the garden about their sculptures and the broader significance of the project.

Elmgreen & Dragset

For the entry point between the garden and the National Mall, former Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu commissioned Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset to create a major work that would stop passersby in their tracks and beckon them inside. The duo responded with Eight (2026), an upright turquoise swimming pool with the voluptuous curves of a violin. They chose the numerical form partly because it resembles the infinity symbol and some cultures see eight as a lucky number. ‘It’s very happy on the surface,’ says Elmgreen. ‘It’s very hopeful in its signal. But then you suddenly realize that it’s an empty container. Instead of being filled with water and filled with happy small children splashing around…it’s standing there as almost a lonely object that has a lot of potential but is not in use.’

‘That doesn’t live up to its promise,’ says Dragset, jumping in (the artists often finish each other’s thoughts). The pair, who have installed related pool sculptures in New York’s Rockefeller Center and Miami Beach’s Pride Park, were partly inspired by the novels of the British sci-fi writer J.G. Ballard. In his books, says Elmgreen, ‘an empty public pool can be a symbol of a failed society – a society that has not provided enough possibilities.’

Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation)

Dancing at Dusk (2024), a travertine sculpture of a woman with a broad mouth and knowing expression by Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation), rests directly on the ground. ‘She’s not on a pedestal,’ says Halfmoon. ‘I wanted her to be of the earth.’ The title of the work, the artist’s first in stone, refers to a ritual dance performed by Caddo women to honor turkeys, who would sound the alarm when nighttime intruders approached the tribe. The sculptural woman wears the same headpiece Caddo women don for the dance, which always occurs at dusk. ‘I really wanted to give homage to my tribe and where I come from,’ she says. ‘That piece is all about the turkey dance and being Native, being from Oklahoma.’ With this piece and others in the garden, the Hirshhorn is showing ‘what America is,’ Halfmoon says. ‘We have all of these voices. We have these histories.’

KAWS

In the protective shade of a large tree, the artist Brian Donnelly (aka KAWS) has installed Shelter (2026), a newly commissioned bronze sculpture composed of two ‘Companions,’ the artist’s term for the characters with rounded bodies, skull-and-crossbones heads, and Xs for eyes that have garnered him global recognition. For the Hirshhorn, KAWS has depicted a parent and child. The smaller standing figure leans against the chest of a larger seated guardian. ‘I wanted something with an emotional warmth to it,’ says Donnelly. As its title suggests, Shelter is about conveying ‘a basic human need and safety within that.’ The work reflects changes in the artist’s own life. Becoming a parent, he says, has shifted his focus to the ‘importance of nurturing and thinking about what’s next, who’s next, and how you guide that.’

Woody De Othello

‘A huge part of my practice is imbuing everyday objects with a sense of emotion or humanism,’ says Woody De Othello. Cool Composition (2026), a 2.4-meter bronze painted leafy green, takes the form of a crumpled box fan. For the artist, who grew up in the sticky heat of South Florida, fans represent sources of everyday relief as well as a state of mind. ‘A huge part of Yoruba and various African traditions is having a cool head,’ says De Othello, who hopes the sculpture will make viewers aware of their bodies, their breath, and the preciousness of even banal experiences. In other words, ‘not taking the boring stuff for granted.’ After all, life is short. ‘We’re not gonna be in physical incarnation forever,’ he says. ‘Our times are finite. So I think appreciating the small moments, that’s maybe the main takeaway.’

Arlene Shechet

Museums can be intimidating spaces. ‘I feel like the gesture of outdoor sculpture is to be more open and inviting,’ says Arlene Shechet, whose viridian sculpture Maiden May (2023) greets visitors near the entrance to the museum. To create the work, Shechet welded together pieces of aluminum and stainless steel, a process she compares to ‘drawing in space.’ Curving sheets, flat planes, and slender rods come together in an abstract construction that reveals windows within itself as the viewer circles the work. Shechet describes the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden as a ‘respite’ for visitors, where they do not ‘have to deal with gigantic golden statues or arches.’ How they engage with her work is entirely up to them. ‘I’m interested in people looking closely and finding places within the sculpture that excite them,’ she says, ‘but also I’m fine if they just sit down on the ground and have a picnic next to it.’