A Visit to Glenstone

Andy Goldsworthy, Holes

Glenstone is a private art museum in Potomac, Maryland, within the DC suburbs. It still belongs to, and is controlled by, its founders, Emily Wei Rales and Mitch Rales. It opened in 2006 so is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. The collection focuses on post-World War II art, and the Rales like to get to know living artists and collect their stuff or commission special works from them. So you know you're in for a weird ride.

I went there yesterday with two of my children and a friend. The main word that comes to my mind is "interesting": there were things I found strange and offputting, but on the whole it was a good experience and I am glad I went. I find that the key to enjoying modern art is to go in the right frame of mind, equally open to being awed, amused, or annoyed, and quick to put the last piece out of your mind so as to approach the next in the same open state.

The place is large and seeing everything involved walking around a lot. Much of the terrain is a native wildflower meadow, which I suppose is lovely at some times of the year, less so on a gray day in October. (Online photo above, and all the others that show sunshine.)

Various sculptures dot the grounds, including three little houses by Andy Goldsworthy and this rocking horse head by Jeff Koons, made of flowers growing on a frame.

There are multiple large sculptures by Richard Serra; my daughter liked this one, Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, 2017,

But I was somewhat puzzled.

I enjoyed this Richard Serra sprial. 

This (Tony Smith, Smug) is one of those sculptures that mainly frustrates because you can't climb on it.

There are two interior spaces. The first one you come to is called The Pavilions. The massive rectangles, made of concrete block, rise from the rolling meadows in an interesting way, making a stark and completely intentional contrast. In the center is this lovely pool. 

Shown here on a better day.

As modern art museums go, I liked the space. (The architect was Thomas Phifer). But the art here is mostly by living artists and mostly political – environmental, anti-racist, pro-immigrant, pro-abortion – and I had the same "meh" reaction I have to post overtly political art. These are room-sized installations, so you can walk a long way and see only a few works, only one of which really grabbed me.

The gems of the collection are in another building called The Gallery. Here you get the famous masters of twentieth-century American art: Clyfford Still (above), Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Agnes Martin,

Jackson Pollock, 

Gordon Parks,

And so on and so on. I loved a lot of this. I think my favorite work was this, When Frustration Threatens Desire by Kerry James Marshall. Perusing their web site I see they own a lot of work that isn't on display, and if you ask me that should clear some of the contemporary political stuff out of the Pavilions and show more of it.

On the whole it was a really good day, sometimes frustrating but generally thought-provoking, and sometimes mind-expanding, just what modern art should be.