Image: First row (left to right): Chatchai Puipia, Wish You Were Here, 2008. Bronze. Gift of Aey Phanachet and Roger Evans in honor of the Hirshhorn’s 50th anniversary, 2025. Courtesy of 100 Tonson Foundation. Izumi Kato. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Photo: Claire Dorn. © Pedro Reyes. Photo: Leon Laskowski. Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Top and Exterior Gates, DeWalt Mask M33.e), 2014. Bronze. Gift of the artist in honor of the Hirshhorn’s 50th anniversary, 2025. © Mark Grotjahn. Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio. Second row (left to right): Lauren Halsey, keepers of the krown (antoinette grace halsey), 2024. Glass fiber–reinforced concrete and mixed media. Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2026. © Lauren Halsey. Courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, and Gagosian. Photo: Andrea Avezzù. Liz Larner, 6, 2010–2011. Stainless steel and paint. Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2022. Courtesy of Regen Projects. Photo: Jean Vong. Woody De Othello. Photo: Jonah Reenders. Raven Halfmoon, Dancing at Dusk, 2024. Travertine. Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2026. © Raven Halfmoon. Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94. Photo: Paola Tazzini Cha.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington has installed Lauren Halsey's "keepers of the krown (antoinette grace halsey)" (2024) in its Sculpture Garden, ahead of the garden's reopening on Saturday, October 31, 2026. The museum's exhibitions team put the work in place in early October, according to the Hirshhorn's own newsletter.
The sculpture, about 22 feet tall, takes the form of an Ancient Egyptian column. Made of glass fiber–reinforced concrete and mixed media, it is covered in impressions taken from signs, posters and advertisements that Halsey gathered in South Central Los Angeles, the neighborhood where she grew up. In Ancient Egypt, columns of this type were often crowned with an image of the goddess Hathor, associated with fertility and motherhood; Halsey instead tops hers with a portrait of her grandmother, glasses included, as a way of guarding her family's history.
The museum says the work shifts the question of whose stories are deemed worthy of a monument, lifting neighborhood memory and everyday visual archives into a civic setting on the National Mall. It was bought through the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund in 2026.
Halsey's column is one of eight sculptures the Hirshhorn acquired specifically for the redesigned garden, announced in March. The others are by Mark Grotjahn, Raven Halfmoon, Izumi Kato, Liz Larner, Woody De Othello, Chatchai Puipia and Pedro Reyes. Several of these contemporary works, including Halsey's, are being placed in the West Garden and its allée.
The garden itself has been closed for a four-year revitalization led by the artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto with his Tokyo firm, New Material Research Laboratory. When it reopens, the 1.3-acre site will show sixty artworks, a 50 percent increase on its previous layout, set among nearly 30,000 new plants and trees. Historic works from Joseph H. Hirshhorn's founding gift, among them Rodin's "The Burghers of Calais" and Matisse's "The Backs I–IV," will be shown alongside the new contemporary acquisitions.
