POTOMAC, MD, February 4, 2025 — Glenstone Museum will reopen the Pavilions in its entirety on March 20, 2025, welcoming visitors to experience its signature single-artist installations as well as a suite of new exhibitions. On view alongside exhibitions by Jenny Holzer and Alex Da Corte will be special presentations by artists Simone Leigh, Charles Ray, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. In conjunction with the reopening, a refreshed website will make information on the museum’s collection available online for the first time.

Emily Wei Rales, director and co-founder of Glenstone, said, “Like the return of spring, each presentation in the Pavilions offers renewal, revealing fresh perspectives while grounding visitors in the ideas that shape our understanding of art. We look forward to welcoming the public to experience both the long-term single-artist presentations and the new exhibitions.”

In the Pavilions, a selection of bronze sculptures by Simone Leigh will be on view in Room 1. Sentinel (Mami Wata) (2020–21) features an abstracted female form encircled by a serpent. Mami Wata is an animistic deity celebrated in parts of Africa and its diaspora. Expressed in unique ways across cultures, representations of Mami Wata often take the form of a mermaid or snake charmer. Leigh describes the work as “my interpretation of a West African water spirit, a deity who has destructive powers as well as creative-generative ones.” Placed nearby will be Sharifa (2022), a portrait of the artist’s friend, writer and activist Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts; and installed in the Water Court and visible from Room 1 is The Last Garment (2022). Depicting a woman washing clothes by hand, the work references a late 19th-century postcard that marketed Jamaica as a "tropical paradise," and critiques the exploitation of images from the African diaspora in colonial narratives.

Room 9 will feature a suite of paintings by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, who was an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. Smith critically examined how political systems have imposed borders on Native American populations and forcibly displaced them over the last 200 years. In I See Red: Indian Map (1992) and Map to Heaven (2021), Smith used thick contours of paint to obscure state and national lines, calling into question the validity of the border system of the United States. She layered materials such as paper, wood, beadwork, quillwork, rawhide, and metal, creating multidimensional works that blur the line between painting and sculpture.  

Works by Charles Ray return to Room 8 for the sixth in a rotating series of installations since the Pavilions opened in 2018. This presentation highlights Ray’s mastery of material and technique while continuing his fundamental exploration of form and space. Anchoring the exhibition is Tractor (2005), created by casting and reassembling hundreds of individual tractor parts in aluminum. Ray has long been transfixed by the idea of articulating the individual parts of an assembled whole; Tractor exemplifies the premise that a sculpture is comprised of its component parts, the spaces between the parts, and the concealed interior of the object itself. Additional works on view include Jeff (2021), an oversize rendering of a seated man lost deep in thought, and Clothes pile (2020), a detailed depiction of the artist’s clothing casually discarded on the floor. Like Tractor, the pile of clothes is realized in aluminum, but a coat of white paint obscures its material relationship to its neighbor.

“The artists featured in our new exhibitions combine daringly original and ambitious formal methods with thoughtful approaches to issues at the heart of contemporary life,” said Nora Severson Cafritz, senior director of collections. “Whether powerfully assertive or playful, dryly enigmatic or humorous, these works exemplify the sense of breakthrough artistic interventions that distinguish Glenstone’s collection.”

These installations will join previously announced major presentations by Jenny Holzer and Alex Da Corte. Holzer’s exhibition in Room 2 will include a selection of silkscreened paintings that feature heavily redacted texts from declassified government documents, in addition to stonework, drawings, LED signs, plaques, and paintings leafed in precious metals. In Room 6, Alex Da Corte’s Rubber Pencil Devil (Hell House) (2022), commissioned by Glenstone, will be paired with The Decorated Shed (2019), a recreation of the miniature model from the television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in which neighborhood houses are replaced by fast food stores. The gallery walls will be upholstered in a flower pattern inspired by Prince’s 1985 album Around the World in a Day in a color palette made especially for Glenstone.

Concurrent to the reopening of the Pavilions, will be the launch of Glenstone’s redesigned and more accessible website with content in English and Spanish. New features include an interactive map, resources for educators and a detailed nature section visitors can browse online and during museum visits. “We’re excited to introduce new digital content that enhances the experience we offer our visitors in person,” said Valentina Nahon, senior director of public engagement. “With this refreshed website, we will expand access to the art collection and information about what’s on view at Glenstone including details of many native plants that thrive in our landscape.”

From February 24 through March 19, 2025, Glenstone will temporarily close to prepare for opening on March 20, 2025. Tickets to the fully reopened Pavilions will be available online starting March 1, 2025.

About Glenstone

Glenstone, a museum of modern and contemporary art, is integrated into nearly 300 acres of gently rolling pasture and unspoiled woodland in Montgomery County, Maryland, less than 15 miles from the heart of Washington, DC. Established by the not-for-profit Glenstone Foundation, the museum opened in 2006 and provides a contemplative, intimate setting for experiencing iconic works of art and architecture within a natural environment. The museum includes its original building, the Gallery, as well as additional structures opened in its 2018 expansion: the Arrival Hall (LEED platinum), the Pavilions, and the Café (both LEED gold).

Glenstone is open Thursdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visitors are also invited to explore the grounds or participate in self-guided sculpture tours. Admission to Glenstone is always free and visits can be scheduled online at: www.glenstone.org.

Media Contacts

Natalie Miller, Polskin Arts: natalie.miller@finnpartners.com

Glenstone Press Office: press@glenstone.org