Glenstone Museum

09/14/2023

Now open in Room 1 of the Pavilions: Barbara Chase-Riboud.

An artist, novelist, and poet, Chase-Riboud creates works informed by wide range of cultural histories, from ancient funerary steles to prominent Black figures of the civil rights movement. The three sculptural pieces presented in Room 1 each come from a different series: Malcolm X, Ta**ra, and La Musica. With heavy bronze appearing to balance above delicate fibers, the pieces invert the hierarchy of materials and seem to defy gravity.

“La Musica Red Parkway / Josephine Red”, 2007
“Ta**ra #4”, 2007
© Barbara Chase-Riboud

08/24/2023

Busy getting ready for back-to-school? So are we! Starting this week, Glenstone is now scheduling school visits for September–January.

Led by our knowledgeable Guides, we offer both in-person and virtual programming for middle and high school aged students. Learn more and schedule your class visit at glst.one/school.

08/16/2023

Live music, local beer, and golden hour light are coming to Glenstone this September! For next month only, we’ll be open until 8pm every Saturday. Whether it’s your first visit or your fifth, join us for something new: jazz at the Patio, evening nature walks, curatorial talks, and beer from local breweries.

Tickets are available at glst.one/saturday, with more released every Monday week-of. Our Guaranteed Entry program will be honored during these extended hours, and the last admissions will be at 6:15pm.

08/09/2023

Kara Walker’s “The Katastwóf Karavan”, 2017 is a sculpture that is “voicing something”, in the words of the artist. In our newest video interview, hear from artists Kara Walker and Jason Moran about the thought process behind this massive sculpture and its steam-powered organ.

Watch now:
📺 → https://glst.one/karawalker

07/28/2023

We're looking forward to participating in the New Directions in the American Landscape's field session on Glenstone's campus! Instructors include our very own Matt Partain, Landscape Superintendent, and Paul Tukey, Director of Environmental Stewardship.

In-person field sessions are back! On an unprecedented scale, public institution Glenstone Museum has planted and managed its landscape organically. The ASLA award-winning campus consists of extensive meadows and reforestation containing 90+ acres of native plants and pollinator habitat - all planted and managed organically. Join us on August 15, 2023.

Get your tickets at https://www.ndal.org/inthefield-summer-2023. Limited attendance. Registration closes 1 week prior to the event.

Wild Ones Glenstone Museum

07/27/2023

Now on view in Room 9 of the Pavilions: Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger's large-scale triptych, “Untitled (Never Perfect Enough),” 2020, continues the artist’s decades-long exploration of gender, power, and media through her signature graphic style and use of direct language.

07/20/2023

Congratulations to artist Cildo Meireles on receiving the Roswitha Haftmann Prize!

He is the first Latin American artist ever to win the award.

07/12/2023

Feeling spontaneous this week? We can help with that.

Tickets are still available this Thursday and Friday for you to wander the museum! Whether you're joining us for the first time or the fifth, there's always something new on view, from new blossoms in the meadow to installations indoors.

07/01/2023

It’s been 10 years since we broke ground on the Pavilions and 5 years since they opened, so we’re taking a moment to reintroduce ourselves. In our new video, hear from our founders, from the artists we work with, and from Glenstone staff about what makes Glenstone the place that it is.

Video by Rava Films

"What is Glenstone?" There are so many ways to answer that question, and we're offering a few answers here from our founders, our associates, artists we work...

12/16/2022

Coming soon to Glenstone: Cecily Brown and Kara Walker. ⁣
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Beginning in February, Cecily Brown’s energetic monumental work, A Day! Help! Help! Another day!, 2016, will be displayed in the Passage.⁣
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A presentation of works by Kara Walker will be on view in Room 1 and outdoors at Glenstone this spring, highlighting the range of this singular artist.
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Photo Credits:⁣
1. Kara Walker⁣
“A Reduction”, 2020⁣
© Kara Walker⁣
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2. Kara Walker⁣
“The Katastwóf Karavan”, 2017⁣
© Kara Walker⁣
Photo: Robert Shelley⁣
Courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington⁣
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3. Cecily Brown⁣
"A day! Help! Help! Another day!", 2016⁣
Photo: Genevieve Hanson⁣
Courtesy of the artist⁣
© Cecily Brown⁣
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12/14/2022

This Friday, hear from artist R.H. Quaytman about her practice and current exhibition at Glenstone in conversation with The Brooklyn Rail

This conversation will take place over Zoom, and you can register here: https://brooklynrail.org/events/2022/12/16/r-h-quaytman/

12/10/2022

Glenstone's newest expansion, a building by Thomas Phifer and Partners housing Richard Serra's "Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure", was named one of the Top 10 museum and culture projects of 2022 by .

Read more here:

SPOTLIGHTING THE TOP museums OF 2022 From adaptive renovations and climate-regulating structures to monumental buildings and irregular volumes, 2022 saw the opening of many exciting museums and cultural centers. During the year, designboom reported on several highly-anticipated projects by Bjarke I...

12/03/2022

Fluffy goldenrod, geometrically dizzying boardwalks, and iris seedheads are just a few of the visual pleasures you’ll find at Glenstone in the wintertime. (Don’t forget - we also have plenty of warm indoor spaces for you to explore, too.)

Thanks so much to for sharing these glimpses of a recent visit.

12/01/2022

Glenstone is un-brrr-lievably beautiful in the winter—and we just released more tickets for December, January, and February. Visit glenstone.org to book. ❄️

11/11/2022

Then and now… A few weeks ago, spent two days with artist Gary Hill () and looking at Gary’s incredible 1992 installation “Tall Ships”.

For the past year, Small Data (with lots of help from Emma Dickson) has been working with Glenstone on migrating “Tall Ships” from ’s original software and 16 LaserDisc players to new code that runs on a few Raspberry Pi microcomputers – quite the feat of digital conservation.

What is, “Tall Ships”, you ask? We’ll be sharing a little bit more about that in the coming months – watch this space or visit ’s page for more about the process of conserving the work in preparation for future exhibitions.

11/06/2022

“In order to tell the truth, you need to invent what might be missing from the archive, to collapse time, to concern yourself with issues of scale, to formally move things around in a way that reveals something more true than fact. That’s always what I’ve been trying to do in sculpture.”—

11/01/2022

Ok, we *had* to regram this amazing costume from yesterday⁠—we’re honored!⁣
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Inspired by their recent visit, the Art Department of Garrison Forest School’s dressed up as members of Glenstone’s glorious guide team for Halloween. ⁣
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Last treat, no tricks: don’t forget that Glenstone’s guaranteed entry policy means educators can walk up any time we’re open with a plus one.  ⁣

10/25/2022

10/14/2022

The in Harlem recently announced the 2022-2023 cohort for its signature Artist-in-Residence program. Please join us in congratulating this year’s cohort of Artists in Residence: Jeffrey Meris, Devin N. Morris, and Charisse Pearlina Weston! These three artists will be the first cohort to benefit from another recent development—Glenstone Foundation has endowed Studio Museum’s Artist-in-Residence program in perpetuity.

The Studio Museum’s foundational Artist-in-Residence program gives emerging artists of African and Afro-Latinx descent an unparalleled opportunity to develop their practice in an eleven-month residency. Alumni of the program, who now number nearly 150, include some of today’s most significant and innovative artists.

Glenstone is honored to support this vital program.

For more on Studio Museum’s Artist-in-Residence program and this year’s artists, visit on social media or at studiomuseum.org!

10/01/2022

It’s all smiles on our nature walks.

On your visit to Glenstone, you can take a guided nature walk through the grounds of Glenstone every day that we are open at 1pm. These walks are led by members of our extremely knowledgeable Grounds and Guide teams, and give you an opportunity to ask questions about our landscape, outdoor sculptures, and sustainability practices.

09/30/2022

“I think that’s really what makes this so enriched and unique… the art and the architecture are not disengaged and are not incompatible philosophically. They’re mutually engaged, and make a much more dynamic experience. There is not a moment when the visitor is not experiencing architecture, sculpture, and landscape recombined in various ways. They never overwhelm or contradict one another, but rather engage one another in a perceptual dialogue.”— , architect of the Gallery at Glenstone, on the Glenstone experience.

With a new presentation of work by R.H. Quaytman now open, we are very glad to welcome visitors back to the Gallery to experience the way that Gwathmey’s design unifies art, architecture, and nature.

09/24/2022

Fall is officially here, and we're dreaming ahead to the moments of autumnal color just around the corner.

09/23/2022

Now on View in the Galllery: R.H. Quaytman

Visitors encounter a 110-foot-wide panoramic painting comprised of 23 panels at the first exhibition of the work of R.H. Quaytman (American/Irish, b. 1961) in the DC area. This work, “Morning: Chapter 30”, 2016 nearly spans the entire wall of Glenstone’s Gallery building.

The exhibition, organized and designed with the artist, opened yesterday, and we look forward to welcoming visitors to experience Quaytman’s richly layered, nuanced work. Working in oil paint, gouache, varnish, glitter, tinted gesso, and ink, among other materials, Quaytman creates compositions that shift back and forth from abstract to figurative, sometimes within a singular painting.

09/15/2022

We are delighted to announce that educators are now eligible for guaranteed walk-in entry to Glenstone Museum! This means that any educator can visit without scheduling in advance; simply walk up to our Arrival Hall and present a valid ID card. You may bring up to 1 additional guest. ⁣
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This year marks 10 years of school visits at Glenstone. In the past decade, we have welcomed more than 10,000 students in this program, and we are looking forward to another wonderful decade of visits. ⁣
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An enormous thank you to all of the educators who have made this possible – it’s a great privilege to share the artwork on view with students and engage with them about art, architecture, and nature!

09/13/2022

Expand the walls of your classroom by visiting Glenstone Museum! ⁣
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Educators and parents, act fast—guided middle and high school visits are available now for this fall. Our school visits support a range of curriculum and grade levels and cover a variety of topics including art, architecture, and nature. And don’t forget: our school visits, like all visits to Glenstone, are completely free! ⁣
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Learn more on our website!

08/19/2022

We’re excited to share some very big news - Michael Heizer’s long-awaited, legendary sculpture the ‘City’ will open to the public this September! A mile and a half long and half a mile wide, the sculpture is located in a remote valley of the high desert of eastern Nevada and has been under construction by Michael Heizer for more than fifty years.

Glenstone Museum is thrilled to join with the Triple Aught Foundation and a cross-country coalition of museums to sustain this long-awaited work of art in perpetuity. We are partners with MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in this endeavor to support an artist whose sculptures ‘Compression Line’, 1968/2016, and ‘Collapse’, 1967/2016, are both on long-term view at Glenstone. To learn more about the opening of the ‘City,’ visit our website: https://glst.one/3KdMZyI

All photos © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation.
1. Complex One, City. Photo: Mary Converse
2. Photo: Ben Blackwell
3. Complex Two, City. Photo: Joe Rome
4. 45°, 90°, 180°, City. Photo: Joe Rome

07/30/2022

"The conversation about political violence is not closed. It is open, and it is up to us to tell the story. That is my task. It’s who I am. And it’s why I work.” —

JUST RELEASED: our interview with artist Doris Salcedo about her exhibition at Glenstone.

FULL VIDEO HERE: https://glst.one/salcedovideo

Video by

07/14/2022

We are thrilled to announce our fall 2022 exhibitions featuring R.H. Quaytman (September) and Wade Guyton (October)! ⁣
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R.H. Quaytman combines painted and silk-screened images on wood panels to create densely layered compositions that shift between abstraction and figuration. For the past two decades Quaytman has conceived each body of work as a “chapter,” modeled on the structure of a book, in an ongoing investigation of the history of picture-making. The exhibition will feature two bodies of paintings, “Morning: Chapter 30” (2016), a 113-foot-long panoramic work that responds to a fraught moment in U.S. politics, and “The Sun Does Not Move: Chapter 35” (2019), which explores Quaytman’s artistic and personal relationship to Eastern European abstract art made under communist rule. ⁣
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Wade Guyton is known for modifying and intentionally misusing consumer technologies like inkjet printers and scanners to explore our evolving relationship to images and meaning-making in the digital era. The presentation will feature a group of 26 paintings that Guyton began in March of 2020, capturing the collective isolation, confusion, and social upheaval that pervaded the first year of the pandemic as he worked alone in his New York studio.⁣
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Image 1:
⁣Wade Guyton⁣
“Untitled”, 2020–21 ⁣
Epson Ultrachrome HDX inkjet on linen, 26 paintings ⁣
Each 84 × 69 inches; 213 x 175 cm ⁣
© Wade Guyton⁣
Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery

Image 2:
R.H. Quaytman⁣
“The Sun Does Not Move, Chapter 35”, 2019⁣
oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood⁣
© R.H. Quaytman⁣
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06/23/2022

Now on view: Richard Serra’s “Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure” housed in a new building designed as a collaboration between Serra and Architect Thomas Phifer.

Sited in a densely wooded area along the Woodland Trail, the 4,000-square-foot concrete structure was designed by Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners, in collaboration with the artist Richard Serra. Inside the building is “Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure,” 2017, the third large-scale sculpture by Serra to be installed at Glenstone. The sculpture is composed of four cylindrical forms made of forged steel, each weighing 82 tons, with the cylinders ranging in height and diameter.

© 2022 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

06/11/2022

Your new desktop screensaver.

Jeff Koons’ “Split-Rocker”, 2000 is in full bloom, filled with marigold, geranium, verbena, and more. This sculpture is starting to look just as fluffy as the clouds billowing above it.

© Jeff Koons

06/04/2022

Arthur Jafa’s “akingdoncomethas” 2018, acts as a centerpiece in his exhibition in Room 6 of the Pavilions. The video is comprised of broadcast footage of Black Christian fellowship that spans two hours, corresponding roughly with the duration of a typical Sunday church service. Intercut with documentation of wildfires, the rousing, dynamic performances by preachers and gospel musicians celebrate the restorative power of faith in times of crisis. In Jafa’s words, he is making art that “replicates the power, beauty, and alienation of Black music.”

"Big Wheel VI", 2018
"akingdoncomethas", 2018
© Arthur Jafa

05/26/2022

Now on view in Room 2: Doris Salcedo

This exhibition is comprised of a selection of sculptures by Doris Salcedo (Colombian, b. 1958), the first solo exhibition of her work in the Washington, D.C. area. Salcedo, who lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia, creates powerful and moving sculptures that reflect the myriad ways in which violence and oppression manifest in the modern world. By way of a time-intensive and laborious process, the forms her sculptures achieve are poetic and compassionate translations of the words and experiences of those who have suffered harm.

Ahora en exposición en la Sala 2: Doris Salcedo

Esta exposición está compuesta por una selección de esculturas de Doris Salcedo (colombiana, n. 1958), la primera presentación individual de la artista en el área de Washington, D. C. Doris Salcedo, que vive y trabaja en Bogotá, Colombia, crea esculturas impactantes y conmovedoras que reflejan el sinfín de maneras en as que la violencia y la opresión se manifiestan en el mundo moderno. A través de un proceso que consume tiempo y es arduo, las formas que alcanzan sus esculturas son traducciones poéticas y compasivas de los testimonios y las experiencias de quienes han sufrido daño.

Doris Salcedo
"Tabula Rasa I", 2018
"Tabula Rasa II", 2018
"Tabula Rasa IV", 2018
© Doris Salcedo

05/21/2022

The good kind of twists and turns: like winding down the zig-zag boardwalk on our Woodland Trail, designed by PWP Landscape Architecture.

05/11/2022

We can't wait to see Kara Walker's “The Katastwóf Karavan"—on loan to the National Gallery of Art for their current exhibition, "Afro-Atlantic Histories"—in action on the National Mall from May 12-18! Live performances with Jason Moran on May 14 and May 15. More info here: http://bit.ly/37zAVsw

Seeing and hearing Kara Walker’s contemporary calliope, “The Katastwóf Karavan" is an unforgettable experience. Beginning *tomorrow* you can experience the work in the Sculpture Garden as part of ➡️ bit.ly/3w3IEbJ

Stop by through May 18 to hear the steam-powered organ play songs of Black resistance and celebration by artists including Prince, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Bessie Smith, Earth Wind and Fire, Marvin Gaye, and more.

This weekend you can hear from the artist in person. On May 14, for our Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series, Kara Walker and Jason Moran, artistic director for jazz at The Kennedy Center, join us to discuss the significance of the monument’s presence on the National Mall. Plus, stick around on May 14 and 15 when Moran performs the instrument live in the Sculpture Garden. 🎶

05/08/2022

What in carnation is happening here? Why, it’s the annual planting of “Split-Rocker”, 2000 by Jeff Koons.

Every year, our grounds team works to plant this horticultural behemoth over a period of a few days. We put in thousands of flowering annuals according to the artist’s vision, creating a colorful, living sculpture that blooms into the fall.

© Jeff Koons

04/24/2022

“I thought of sculpture as a behavior, and I thought of the finished work as a punctuation mark in my behavior.”—

Just released: our interview with artist Charles Ray about his exhibition at Glenstone.

Full video here:
📺 → https://glst.one/ray

Video by Rava Films

04/16/2022

Looking for a piece of Glenstone in Washington, D.C.? Lawrence Weiner's "Catalogue #471", 1980 is currently on long-term loan at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library branch of DC Public Library. Library visitors can find this artwork in the west stairwell of the architectural landmark’s 3rd floor. Fitting for a library, the text of this piece muses on the process of how things change. At any moment, we might experience a new book, a new building, or a new work of art, and these things might set us in motion on a new trajectory. Lawrence Weiner, known for his thoughtful text-based works that he regarded as a form of sculpture, specially adapted the design and scale of the work to this location prior to his death in December 2021.

04/08/2022

Our visitors often comment on the clarity of the glass windows in the Pavilions. Our Facilities team takes special care to clean the glass every week. The 22-foot-high windows around the Water Court are cleaned with a specialized, portable, and chemical-free cleaning system called the “hydro tube.” Water is filtered through the tube, then sprayed or brushed onto the windows. This doesn’t require any soap or detergent, keeping the windows sparkling and the Water Court chemical-free!