Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Spring brings renewed attention to MCASD’s outdoor spaces. With longer days, warmer breezes, and shifting light, this month’s Stories Behind the Art invites you to experience art outdoors, where sculpture, landscape, and everyday materials enliven spaces just as spring revitalizes nature.  

Now’s the perfect time to spend your longer days at MCASD! We are open until 7PM from Thursday to Saturday and until 5PM on Sunday–just in time for golden hour. 

Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man at 3,110,527, 1988 

Instantly recognizable off Prospect Street—the very GPS coordinates imprinted on the leg of the mechanized figure—Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man at 3,110,527 performs a simple, continuous action. Borofsky’s towering steel figure raises and lowers its arm in a steady rhythm, hammering throughout the day. Borofsky honors the labor that sustains society, paying homage to essential workers and reminding us of the continual work necessary to maintain community. As one of many found throughout the world in Borofsky’s iconic Hammering Man series, Borofsky dedicates much of his practice to outdoor sculpture and breaking free of traditional gallery spaces. 

Francisco Zúñiga's Juchiteca de pie (Standing Juchiteca), 1966 

Just behind in Art Park, placed on the edge of The Kitchen, sits Francisco Zúñiga’s Juchiteca de pie (Standing Juchiteca) —a life-size bronze sculpture of a nameless Zapotec woman of Juchitán in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Recognized for his depictions of Indigenous populations in Mexico, Zúñiga often focused on women, portraying them humbly, elegantly, and in powerful themes of maternity. This sculpture, with its strong, unflinching stance, represents the face of Indigeneity in Mexico, or perhaps more abstractly, the body of the nation itself.  

Dine alongside Jichetica de pie at The Kitchen, dinner service returning on March 26. 

Gabriel Orozco’s Long Yellow Hose, 1996

Down the way off Coast Boulevard, Gabriel Orozco’s Long Yellow Hose introduces a playful, site-responsive gesture into MCASD's Sculpture Garden. A bright yellow hose winds across the lawn in looping lines, drawing the eye. One of the key figures in a group of Mexican Conceptual artists that engage with urban surrounding, Orozco deliberately blurs the boundaries between what the viewer may consider an “art object” and an object found in our everyday environment. At first glance, the hose appears simply forgotten in the maintenance of the garden. Against the verdant landscaping, the hose brings to bear the associations of labor and irrigation systems that allow the lush terrain to thrive in desert soil. With spring, the contrast only grows greater. 

Nancy Rubins’ Pleasure Point, 2006 

Bold, dynamic, and unmistakably monumental, Pleasure Point by Nancy Rubins transforms MCASD’s Coast Boulevard facade. Known for her large-scale sculptures using found objects, Pleasure Point is constructed from an assemblage of beachside objects, including boats, canoes, kayaks, and surfboards, cantilevered over a terrace and stretching towards the ocean. Pleasure Point’s aerodynamic shapes and bright colors blur the line between architecture, sculpture, and landscape—inviting viewers to reconsider how discarded objects can be reimagined into powerful works of contemporary art. 

Ring in spring by spending time with more of MCASD’s outdoor artwork.