This cylindrically shaped, concrete-and-granite building holds provocative art at its best, from de Kooning to Jeff Koons. Look for Thomas Hart Benton’s dizzying sprawl of figures in his 1920 painting People of Chilmark, Ellsworth Kelly’s vivid minimalist paintings, Dan Steinhilber’s sculpture made out of paper-clad wire hangers, Henri Matisse’s bronze casts, and Damien Hirst’s The Asthmatic Escaped II, 1992, in which one of two conjoined glass cases holds a camera on a tripod, and the other holds the clothing, inhaler, and other personal effects of “the escaped.” The museum rotates works from its near 12,000-piece collection, 600 at any one time, so if these exact artworks are not on view, others in the avant-garde family will be. Exhibitions also feature artwork on loan as well as commissions for the space, meaning you can only see it here. 

You might also catch some of its newest acquisitions: the two Infinity Mirror Rooms by Yayoi Kusama and two new sculptures in the sculpture garden from Sterling Ruby and Huma Bhabha. Don’t overlook the special exhibits either, which feature shows like One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama, from the museum’s collection, and one of the largest collections of artwork by Marcel Duchamp, the grandfather of contemporary art.

One of the most popular activations here is the “Wish Tree,” by Yoko Ono. In spring and summer, visitors are asked to handwrite a wish for peace and tie it to this dogwood tree in the garden. 

Speaking of the garden, the museum’s 4.3-acre outdoor sculpture garden is undergoing its first renovation in almost 40 years, and at press time, an end date had not been released. The redesign, the work of Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, calls for a complete redo of the formerly sunken garden. Adjacent to the National Mall, the below-ground garden was barely visible to both Mall and museum visitors. In 1974, acclaimed architect Gordon Bunshaft originally envisioned a much larger garden that traversed the entire National Mall’s width and featured a substantial reflecting pool, but his ideas were never fully realized. As part of the renovation, the entrance will be enhanced, so that it’s no longer below ground level. Initial concept designs also include reopening the underground passage connecting the garden to the museum plaza, which has been closed for more than 30 years. During construction, visitors will find many of the sculptures throughout the museum, while others will unfortunately not be on display. Note: The Hirshhorn’s Sculpture Garden and the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden, located directly across the Mall from each other, offer two very different experiences.

The Hirshhorn exists thanks to a man named Joseph H. Hirshhorn, who was born in Latvia in 1899 but immigrated to the United States as a boy. In 1966, Hirshhorn donated his collection of more than 6,000 works of modern and contemporary art to the United States in gratitude for the country’s welcome to him and other immigrants, and bequeathed an additional 5,500 upon his death in 1981. The museum opened in 1974.

You can grab some refreshments at the coffee and gelato bar run by Dolcezza. There’s also a fun store that art lovers will, well, love.