For Gordon Bunshaft, 2006, fabricated 2007-2008

Since the 1970s, Dan Graham has explored notions of space and perception through installations and sculptures that critique modernist suburban architecture and encourage audience participation. For Gordon Bunshaft, created in 2006 and fabricated in 2007-2008, is a site-specific pavilion honoring the architect of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and incorporating references to the Museum itself. Its curved glass wall echoes the drum-shaped building, while the wooden lattice recalls traditional Japanese architecture's natural materials and the Japanese influences Bunshaft drew upon in designing the sunken Garden. The gridded square motif within the lattice directly references Graham's friendship with the Minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, whose work was on view in the gallery overlooking the Garden when Graham conceived the pavilion. Experiencing the work evokes ideas of inside and outside, public and private, suburban and urban, and the natural and the human-made.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States