Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, United States
October 31, 2026–November 7, 2027
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has announced that Yoshitomo Nara: Sentinels of Stillness will inaugurate its West Lawn with the opening of a revitalized sculpture garden this fall.
Sentinels of Stillness includes three new monumental artworks by Yoshitomo Nara emphasizing the interplay between the artist’s life experience and sculpture’s premodern foundation: hand-building with clay. Sentinels of Stillness introduces three recent sculptures: Long Tall Peace Sister (2025), Smiling (2025) and Tiny Bright Round Eyes (2025), each a sculptural enlargement of a small clay head created in 2021. Fabricated in aluminum and coated in white urethane paint, the three towering heads evoke the snowdrifts that the artist recalls from his childhood winters. On closer inspection, the trio reveals Nara’s thoughtful attention to material and the play of light on its surface. The forms invite curiosity, contemplation and rest; they are emblematic of the artist’s intention to forward a spirit of peace. “We are honored to present Sentinels of Stillness,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “We expect Nara’s sculpture to inspire visitors to pay attention to the power of ancient art-making practices to foster human connection. Nara’s exhibition also initiates a Hirshhorn tradition: an exhibition series, commissioned each year, from a leading global artist for our West Lawn.”
Nara was deeply affected by the suffering he witnessed in the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and nuclear disaster, which devastated his home region in Japan. He felt unable to paint but found a way forward in the immediate, bodily physicality of working with clay. It was the direct, hands-on shaping of this elemental material that recharged his creative energy. In 2020, Nara conceived his sculptural enlargements, envisioning large-scale works realized in bronze and aluminum as he hand-molded their palm-sized clay prototypes, mindful of the potential psychological impacts of enlarging them.
Yoshitomo Nara’s distinctive body of work, spanning a four-decade career, encompasses drawing, painting, sculpture and architectural installations. His sculptural practice began in the mid-1980s with figurative wood carvings, and, in the 1990s, he introduced the use of FRP (fiber-reinforced plastic) coated in lacquer and later urethane. His work in ceramics developed during a 2007 residency in Shigaraki, Japan, a historic center for pottery. Nara is renowned for his arresting images of children with large heads, whose wide-eyed demeanors present an air of innocence counterbalanced by defiance. In 2013, the Hirshhorn included Nara’s drawing No Nukes! ‘In the Floating World’ (1999) in the exhibition Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950 (2013–2014) and hosted an artist talk with him.
Organized by Hirshhorn curator Anne Reeve, Yoshitomo Nara: Sentinels of Stillness will be contextualized with free public tours and art education. The exhibition has been made possible with generous support from Iris and Adam Singer, with special thanks to Equivalence Art Agency.
Learn more at the Hirshhorn.