The view from inside Tower Three looking at Chakaia Booker’s new exhibit “In the Tower: Treading New Ground” in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2026. (Anisa Fox / Fourth Estate)

The exhibit by sculptor Chakaia Booker uses recycled tires to bring awareness to environmental issues

BY ANISA FOX, STAFF WRITER

In Tower Three of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., there is a small, brightly lit room with walls adorned in car tires. 

The exhibit, titled “In the Tower: Treading New Ground,” opened last April and will run until Aug. 2, 2026. It features three installations by Chakaia Booker, an internationally renowned sculptor who uses reclaimed and otherwise discarded materials to create her work. 

The museum is located alongside other Smithsonian museums on 7th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. The exhibit is open daily between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and free to all visitors.   

Tower Three is situated behind several abstract art spaces featuring works such as a giant blue chicken by Katharina Fritsch on the building’s roof, the massive emotion filled squares by infamous painter Mark Rothko and graffiti-like creations by Jean Dubuffet in the east building adjoining the tower.

Climbing up the spiral staircase to the skylight-lit exhibit, viewers are invited to go up close with the installations and are welcome to feel them. The three heavy pieces measure up to 21 feet wide each. 

The works featured are titled “Acid Rain” (2001), “Echoes in Black” (1996) and “It’s So Hard to Be Green” (2000). The exhibit is the result of 40 laborious years of collecting, cleaning, hauling, cutting and shaping tires. Together the pieces tell a story of Earth’s fight against environmental threats. 

“Acid Rain” symbolizes the “destruction and creative possibilities of our interactions with the environment,” while “Echoes in Black” evokes a “landscape choked by industry,” according to the museum labels. 

“It’s So Hard to Be Green” symbolizes the difficulty of finding the best way to tackle environmental issues. 

Descriptions in the exhibit explain that for Booker, using reclaimed materials in her art allows her to make a statement about environmental destruction. Saving these materials from a landfill death — where they could release harmful chemicals into the environment — embodies her message.

“I saw and still see the recycling of old tires as a contribution to the resolution of the issues involved both realistically and symbolically,” Booker wrote in the exhibit label.

The view from inside Tower Three looking at Chakaia Booker’s new exhibit “In the Tower: Treading New Ground” in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2026. (Anisa Fox / Fourth Estate)

As a viewer, seeing the pieces in person for the first time is striking. It’s easy to feel consumed by the art as if the swirls of the sculpted car, truck and bike tires are going to envelop you in their black. 

The exhibit is best experienced by sitting in front of each work to observe the very intentional cutting and molding of the tires and how each piece, despite being physically stagnant, contains a movement that carries breath away. Their significance is impossible to ignore. 

The National Gallery of Art remains a unique, free and family friendly experience in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It makes otherwise hidden issues, artists and works of art accessible to a varied audience. 

Booker’s work is just one of many exhibits that evoke deep emotions and pose questions about the human experience.