NEW YORK, NY.- The Whitney Museum of American Art and Hyundai Motor Company present Hyundai Terrace Commission: Kelly Akashi, a site-specific presentation by Los Angeles based artist Kelly Akashi on the Museum’s fifth-floor outdoor gallery. This marks the third Hyundai Terrace Commission since the 10-year partnership between the Whitney and Hyundai Motor was established in 2024. Part of Whitney Biennial 2026, on view March 8–August 23, 2026, the commission brings together a new sculptural installation, steel relief, works on paper, and an outdoor-screen animation across the Whitney’s terrace and adjacent spaces.
Anchoring the presentation is Monument (Altadena) (2026), a chimney and walkway installation that takes shape as both reconstruction and memorial. After Akashi’s home and studio burned in the Eaton Fire in January 2025, the chimney was the only structure left standing. For the Hyundai Terrace Commission, the artist has worked with a mason to reconstruct the chimney piece by piece alongside a reconstruction of her home’s pathway, rendered in luminous cast glass brick. Installed on the terrace, the work transforms the Whitney’s outdoor gallery into a charged site of witness and a meditation on survival, rupture, and the fragile permanence of what remains.
Also on the terrace, Inheritance (Distressed) (2026) is installed on the bulkhead south of Monument (Altadena). The work draws from a personal archive, Akashi’s grandmother’s doilies, which the artist rescued from a family garage sale and later lost in the same fire. Combining images generated from pre-fire scans with weathering steel (Cor-Ten), a material historically associated with Minimalist sculpture and coded masculinity, the work brings two histories into contact: one intimate and one cultural which reflects on the struggle to know what to do with what we inherit.
Inside the Museum, Imprints (2026) comprises five framed works on paper. On the terrace’s outdoor screen, Remnants (Constellations) (2026) extends the presentation into moving image, offering an animated counterpart to the exhibition’s material investigations of trace, memory, and aftermath.
“The act of rebuilding is not simply about material endurance; it is a deliberate labor of care, an engagement with history, and an act of reclamation,” said artist Kelly Akashi. “In laying each brick, my sculpture mirrors the gestures of memory itself, emphasizing that remembrance is not given, it is constructed through care and persistence. Each brick carries the record of labor and material transformation; together, they compose a new body that holds the traces of its past.”
“For the Hyundai Terrace Commission: Kelly Akashi, we were drawn to Kelly for her command of multiple mediums, and in particular for her skillful use of glass and steel,” said Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator. “She has met the technical and conceptual demands of large-scale outdoor sculpture with aplomb, producing a monumental work that stands as a resolute testament to remembrance and the legacies that shape our collective and individual histories.”
“Weaving together intimate personal histories with broader collective narratives, Hyundai Terrace Commission: Kelly Akashi offers a moment to reflect on memory and resilience,” said DooEun Choi, Art Director of Hyundai Motor Company. “It challenges us to consider the potential for a solidarity that transcends the individual to embrace the communal, aligning with the Hyundai Terrace Commission’s commitment to sharing transformative artistic experiences with a wider audience.”
A Bloomberg Connects audio guide will accompany the installation; visitors can hear Akashi describe her decision to build Monument (Altadena) using glass bricks via an on-site QR code.
Hyundai Terrace Commission: Kelly Akashi is organized by Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator, and Drew Sawyer, Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, with Beatriz Cifuentes, Biennial Curatorial Assistant, and Carina Martinez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow.
