Elmgreen & Dragset at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has announced the acquisition of a monumental new sculpture by Elmgreen & Dragset, an artist duo celebrated for large-scale installations that investigate the complexity of societal norms and structures. Commissioned for the Sculpture Garden, “Eight” (2026) extends the artists’ decades-long preoccupation with the pool motif.

Cast in stainless steel with a lacquered cyan interior, and furnished with a diving board, ladder and lights, “Eight” evokes ideas of leisure through the form of a typical backyard pool. Upended, empty and eternally unswimmable, the 28-foot-tall sculpture emblematizes the artists’ mastery of displacement—excerpting familiar objects from people’s surroundings and presenting them as new and strange. Placed like a beacon at the north entrance to the Hirshhorn campus, inside the Sculpture Garden, the large, bright artwork delivers a playful introduction to the national museum of modern and contemporary art. The immediate appearance of the artwork winks to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, though “Eight” is entirely sculpted and handcrafted.  

A crowning installation in the garden, recently revitalized by artist-architect Hiroshi Sugimoto and due to reopen Oct. 31, “Eight” is the fourth in the artists’ series of backyard swimming pool sculptures to be installed for public encounters, including sites in New York and Miami. 

“The installation of ‘Eight’ caps a landmark commission almost five years in the making and signals the imminent reopening of our Sculpture Garden,” said Aaron Seeto, acting director of the Hirshhorn. “We expect Elmgreen & Dragset’s new work will excite interest and visitation through our expanded front door. The artwork’s elliptical shape responds to the Hirshhorn’s geometry, both architect Gordon Bunshaft’s original 1974 plan as well as Sugimoto’s revitalization of our garden, to inspire conversations about the importance of art and ideas.”

“For us, swimming pools can be synonymous with public access, togetherness and community—like the Hirshhorn,” Elmgreen & Dragset said. “‘Eight’ appears empty, yes, but ready to be filled by the imaginations of visitors. We are honored to be part of this important collection and reopening installation.”

“Elmgreen & Dragset are virtuosos of transformations within both the traditional confines of galleries and outside,” said Anne Reeve, Hirshhorn curator. ‘Eight’ presents a confluence of ideas and impressions that we hope will inspire the curious to engage with the questions—and rewards—that modern and contemporary art can encourage.”

“Eight” was acquired through the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund with support from the New Carlsberg Foundation.

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