A model rendering of the installation "The Curtain Begins" (2021) commissioned by the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and is scheduled to debut in the fall of 2021. Provided by the artist
Most museums along the National Mall in Washington, DC have reopened after a long-term pandemic closure, but the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden remain closed throughout the summer. The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art hopes to kick off the fall season with an eye-catching project to make up for the long-term lack of public interaction. In September of this year, Hirshhorn plans to install a painting on the entire exterior of its cylindrical museum building. A site-specific commission initiated by the Swiss-born artist Nicolas Pat (Nicolas Party), 4 stories high and 829 feet in circumference, will subvert the city’s immortal core landscape with a brazen hide-and-seek scene.
This difficult task is the follow-up to another wrap-around pastel painting "Sunrise and Sunset" created by Party for Hirshhorn's indoor gallery in 2017. The opening of the curtain also continued the tradition of other projects, which used Hirshhorn's brutal curve drum as a platform, including Doug Aitken's 2012 video of the spectacular SONG1.
Scaffolding currently surrounds the 1974 building, which is undergoing exterior renovations, party pastel paintings will add luster to the scrim on the scaffolding, and figures staring at passersby from behind the curtains. "He referred to a technique of illusion, but it was also a drama about the idea of screens and peeking at the cover," said Anne Reeve, Hirshhorn's associate curator.
The project was proposed when Hirshhorn reconsidered its entire campus. The plan to modify the museum’s sculpture garden led by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto was approved by the Federal Design Supervision Agency on July 15. He redesigned the hall in 2017 and presented his first professional survey in the museum in 2006. The plan has been criticized by some conservationists and will introduce stone walls to construct modernist bronze sculptures and other features, and divide the sculpture garden into different gallery areas.
The initial artist design of the Nicolas Party installation "The Curtain" (2021) was provided by the artist
The current construction of the museum involves the removal and replacement of approximately 670 external panels for routine maintenance. Svensson pink granite mined from the same quarry used for the building in Maine 50 years ago will be used again for this work. Much of this work will be hidden from prying eyes behind the party divisions.
To anyone in a shopping mall, the curtain opened looks like a continuous 360-degree pastel painting. The project actually includes 126 scrim sections. Party created this piece digitally, and two American engineering companies, BrandSafway and Total Enclosure Sail System, will perform the installation. This work will be preserved during the renovation project-approximately 10 months, until the summer of 2022.
Hirshhorn will reopen to the public on August 20, and the party's work will not be open until mid-September. Museum staff hope it will inspire Washingtonians to look at the city in a whole new light.
"This is a recognition of what is happening behind the scenes of all other government buildings in the entire region," Reeve said.