We enjoyed visiting the Hirshhorn Art Museum when my in-laws where here for a visit the first week of April. Ben was at class and Dannica has online school to do but that didn’t stop the rest of us from doing some exploring. The younger boys really wanted to visit the Air and Space Museum so the plan was a quick visit to the art museum then we would spend the rest of the day there. My mother in law is an artist so we thought it would be enjoyable for her to be there while we experienced this museum, A short visit turned into 4 hours of waiting. There is a special exhibit by Yayoi Kusama, a world famous Japanese artist, at the Hirshhorn currently. She is known for her unusual work and the fact that she constructs this art from a mental asylum where she has lived the majority of her life. For more info visit here,https://hirshhorn.si.edu/kusama/
This special exhibit led to crazy lines, We waited for an hour and were lucky enough to get one of the last passes offered. They gave us a noon showing. We visited the rest of the museum and ate lunch outside in the sculpture garden. Everett loved the crushed car sculpture.
We lined up at about 11:45. We then waited in line for over an hour. They finally let us inside and led us to a room where we waited in line for another hour. At the end of the line there was a woman who would allow you to enter a room then close the door for exactly 20 seconds. It was a small mirrored room filled with interesting textured art. At the end of 20 seconds she opened the door and you had to leave and go wait in a similar line for the next exhibit.
Our 20 seconds in the magical room.
By that point the kids were just done. Too much waiting for too little reward. One of the docents felt sorry for us and let us sneak into the end of the exhibit where they gave us a pack of stickers we got to help decorate the room with. Truthfully those stickers salvaged the day.
You can see here Harrisons broken arm. That was an adventure. He broke it while riding his Rip Stick 2 weeks after our arrival. Taking an Uber to the hospital is something I will not soon forget.
I love this photo so much it has become the lock screen on my phone.
We spent an hour at the Air and Space Museum but we were so over everything by then no pictures were taken.
My take away- Visit the Hishhorn and enjoy the display of orchids and other artwork but skip the special exhibit.