Adam Pendleton’s Vision Wraps the Hirshhorn… With a Scoop of Dolcezza

The Hirshhorn Museum’s 50th anniversary celebration extends beyond the gallery walls this summer, onto its plaza… and even into its gelato.

Washington’s own Dolcezza Gelato & Coffee recently unveiled a newly wrapped outdoor shipping container at the museum, designed in collaboration with artist Adam Pendleton, whose major exhibition Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen anchors the Hirshhorn’s milestone year.

On view through January 3, 2027, Love, Queen brings together recent and new paintings that highlight Pendleton’s distinctive contributions to contemporary American painting. The exhibition, organized by Hirshhorn head curator Evelyn C. Hankins, underscores the museum’s role as a platform for innovative voices shaping modern art.

Pendleton’s work now stretches beyond the galleries to the museum’s plaza. His bold, text-based design transforms Dolcezza’s seasonal gelato container into an extension of the exhibition itself.

“Working in the studio with Dolcezza’s products and packaging in mind has been incredibly exciting,” Pendleton said.

“When we collaborated on the coffee cup design earlier this year, I found it challenging to select just one painting for the project, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to apply my visual language to a new element of the collaboration — Dolcezza’s iconic shipping container on the Hirshhorn’s plaza.”

For Dolcezza, the partnership connects art in a uniquely edible form. And to mark the occasion, the company released a limited-edition Single Origin Chocolate gelato, available only at the Hirshhorn container from August 22 through September 30.

Crafted from stone-ground Ecuadorian cacao and local grass-fed milk, the flavor elevates chocolate ice cream to an artistic statement of its own.

“We’ve decided to roll out the red carpet of a stone-milled single-origin chocolate gelato, which totally resets the definition for what chocolate ice cream is,” said Dolcezza co-founder Robb Duncan.

Founded in 2004, Dolcezza has become a fixture in Washington, with six locations across the region and a year-round café inside the Hirshhorn. Its collaborations with Pendleton, including this spring’s specially designed coffee cup and new shipping container gelato venue, showcase how contemporary art can move seamlessly into daily rituals.