A Day in Washington D.C. (5/22)

A day trip to Washington D.C. to see a Yayoi Kusama exhibit.

One day in March, my sister came up to me and said, “Do you want to see this artist’s exhibit.” What artist, I had replied back, curious as to who my sister could possibly be interested in seeing in Washington D.C.. Then she said this: Yayoi Kusama.

She slightly mispronounced, as many people tend to do, but my ears perked up immediately. I previously had been to one of Yayoi’s legendary exhibits in New York City at David Zwirner, an art gallery in Chelsea. That exhibit had been one of her more iconic rooms, and it was titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE. It was absolutely gorgeous, one of my favorite art places I’ve been to.

This one was titled ONE WITH ETERNITY, and it was hosted at the Hirshhorn in Washington DC. The Hirshhorn is one of the many museums a part of the Smithsonian, so it’s technically the National Museum of Modern Art. It’s not very big and located on the National Mall, so it’s about four floors with 1-2 exhibits per floor. Everything is also free because it is a Smithsonian—any Smithsonian in Washington is free. Let’s dive into this day.

Hirshhorn Museum: Yayoi Kusama, Laurie Anderson, Maurel Duchamp.

We arrived in Washington D.C. at around nine in the morning on a Tuesday, then headed immediately from the metro to the Hirshhorn. The Yayoi Kusama exhibit is known for its extremely long lines if you go on a busy day and they can run out of passes, but we got in line in time. There were quite a few people in front of us, but they distributed the passes at nine thirty. We got ten as our time for the exhibit, which is when the Hirshhorn technically opens. We waited in front of the door then entered at ten, heading straight to the exhibit.

The exhibit was located on the basement floor, next to the gift shop. They have a series of rooms leading up to the infinity rooms explaining Yayoi Kusama’s history and the meaning behind her art.

Some of her early 1950s paintings were on display, as well as one of her giant glass pumpkins. There were polka dots all over that room, making it a very visual experience. Then came the infinity rooms. There were two this time.

The first one my sister and I went in together, and you get thirty seconds tops in there. The employees time it very specifically to keep the line going.

That first infinity room was filled with the red and white tentacles, then there was a little pathway that you could barely stand in. I wasn’t into this infinity room as much, but I think the time in there was much too short. It felt a bit rushed.

The second one was a series of polka dot balls suspended from the ceiling. It’s dark in there, the polka dot balls change colors every ten seconds. That was a fairly visual experience, I liked it a lot.

You get a minute in there and I felt like I could truly enjoy the fact I could be consumed by the lights and colors, which was a better experience than the previous room. This was the best part of the exhibit in my humble opinion.

We then headed over to the gift shop because I collect postcards from all the art museums I go to in the world.

They had a lot of Kusama merch, but a lot of it was pretty expensive. I liked that they had Kusama postcards so I picked up two—they were a dollar each, which was surprising because I was used to the prices of the NYC art museums (the MoMA will literally charge you $5 a postcard). I also checked out a book about Shirin Neshat in there, one I’d wanted for awhile, noted its price, then decided to get it sometime later.

The next two exhibits in the museum were Laurie Anderson’s and Maurel Duchamp’s. Laurie Anderson is a multimedia poet, artist, and musician and I really loved her work. There was a lot of video work scattered throughout the floor, as well as photographs, poems, and an entire room filled with sketches about how the world sucked politically, socially, and culturally nowadays. We really liked this exhibit, but weren’t as into the Duchamp exhibit.

Some people love Duchamp, but I wasn’t into it as much. Not much to say here about that.

National Portrait Gallery, Museum of American Art, and The Hamilton

After we finished up at the Hirshhorn, we walked across the National Mall, drinking in the views of the Capitol Building, Chinatown, and the Washington Monument, to get to the National Portrait Gallery. Certain galleries were under construction, but there was still a lot to do in there.

We started in the front galleries, where they have their newest acquisitions, then headed through the middle section to get to the upper floors. The second floor boasts every portrait of every single American president, so it was interesting to walk through them in order.

They didn’t have Obama’s actual portrait, as it tends to rotate across museums, but I really liked the Civil Rights exhibit they had right after it. I also was like hmmm because they had a television playing footage from previous presidencies, and as soon as they walked in they put on footage of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. That footage specifically was pretty negative towards Iranians, so I was a tad uncomfortable by that.

There was another exhibit on American and folk art, which a lot of it was pretty spiritual. This is where you also can easily get lost, as the Portrait Gallery is attached to the Museum of American Art, which is an entirely separate museum. There were some really nice paintings in that museum during our brief walkthrough of some rooms, but we didn’t have time to stop in there.

After we finished up the second floor. we headed up to the third floor which has portraits of famous people. The 1990s to present wing had people like Katy Perry and Kurt Cobain, while there were a lot of female actresses for theatre in the early 1900s section. We didn’t spend a lot of time on the third floor because we were tired.

At this point, we were getting hungry, we walked another fifteen minutes outside to eat at The Hamilton near the White House. My sister ordered sushi, while I got a ragu rigatoni dish. It was alright, not spectacular.

This particular place was charming because of its decor—it was very Washington. Arches, Roman-inspired art. We were the only ones at lunchtime not in a suit and a lot of people were discussing government affairs, so I assume this was a popular place for government workers.

After that, we headed onto the nearest subway station and headed back to our car in suburbia. I always love visiting DC because all the museums are free and the architecture is gorgeous—no other city in the United States is like DC. It’s genuinely my favorite city in the country.