Everything You Need to Know Before Visiting Maryland's Glenstone Museum

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Concrete slabs rise up from the earth, large abstract sculptures scatter across the landscape like relics of a lost civilization, and coming from the woods is a raucous shouting . . . you can only be at the Glenstone museum.

Back in November, my friend Icy Li suggested we visit Glenstone, which had just reopened in October after five years of extensive landscaping and construction. I was unfamiliar with the museum, but its website described it as, “. . . a place that seamlessly integrates art, architecture, and landscape into a serene and contemplative environment.”

Count me in.

Inside a stunning, organic outdoor sculpture by Richard Serra, Sylvester, 2001.

Though we made our reservations back in November, they were rescheduled to April because of the snow we got in January. Admission to Glenstone is free but limited to 400 people per day to ensure an unhurried and uncrowded experience, and the museum is only open Thursday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm. I highly recommend making reservations in advance online (spaces two months ahead open up on the first of every month at 10 am). While the museum will do their best to accommodate those without reservations in the afternoons, space is not guaranteed.

We arrived 15 minutes promptly before our 11am reservation, parked, and entered the Arrival Hall where a Guide warmly welcomed us (can you tell Glenstone likes to capitalize things?). I was instantly struck by the high ceilings, cast concrete slabs, and larger-than-life language art by Lawrence Weiner on the wall facing the entrance: MATTER SO SHAKEN TO ITS CORE TO LEAD TO A CHANGE IN INHERENT FORM TO THE EXTENT OF BRINGING ABOUT A CHANGE IN THE DESTINY OF THE MATERIAL PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY. The work is one of several commissioned by Glenstone, which makes for an extremely unique experience.

Our Guide supplied us with maps and explained how to wind our way across the property to the main museum building, secondary buildings, cafes, and outdoor installations. We stepped outside and began our journey.

Set across more than 200 acres of land in Potomac, Maryland, about 45 minutes north of Washington D.C., Glenstone is a contemporary art museum that was established in 2006. The privately-owned institution consists of paintings, sound installations, and indoor and outdoor sculpture. Most of the 1,300 post-World War II works are centered in the largest building on the property, the Pavilions, which was our first stop. Built from concrete and glass, the modernist construction is meant to look like a cluster of many separate buildings from the outside, but the inside reveals one large structure with many rooms, framed around the Water Court, an open air water garden.

We took our time exploring each room, moving from Lygia Pape’s Book of Time I to Alexander Calder’s La Demoiselle, and everything in between.

With Richard Serra's "Sylvester" sculpture at Maryland's Glenstone museum.

The art, all post-World War II, is curated to guide the visitor through the historical shifts of the 20th and 21st centuries, demonstrating the changes in taste, culture, and interpretation. Refreshingly, there are no paragraphs of descriptive text – no grounding or analysis – pasted up on the walls. To know the name of the art and artist for any pieces requires a hunt around the corners of each room. These omissions mean visitors enjoy each work as a blank slate – unencumbered by context or the weight of others’ perspectives. For those who desire more, Guides are available to answer questions and talk about the artwork.

We wrapped our way around the inside of the Pavilions, soaked in the Viewing Gallery, and contemplated the Water Court, before exiting and continuing the path towards the smaller buildings and outdoor installations.

***Update: I visited both of Glenstone’s cafes in December 2019.***

There are two cafes in two different, facing buildings on the museum’s extensive campus. The first has a seasonal menu of soups, salads, and sandwiches with cafeteria-style seating in a minimalist Scandinavian style. I had a quinoa and vegetable salad that was quite good. The offerings are limited, but it’s a nice spot for a light lunch. The second is more of a true cafe, with hot and cold drinks and pastries, and smaller tables and chairs. A functional fireplace at one end warms the space deliciously in cold weather.

The bench in the Viewing Gallery, designed by Martin Puryear in collaboration with Michael Hurwitz. The glass is so pristine, it seemed like it wasn’t there at all.

We paused under blossoming trees and a small pond for a while, then took a trail into the woods where a short walk brought us to several more installations, including the 30-minute sound installation FOREST (for a thousand years…) by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller which we heard long before we saw. The work evokes the myriad things a forest witnesses – peace, joy, violence, and more – over a millennia.

We doubled back and ended our journey at Michael Heizer’s Compression Line, an imposing steel installation that spans the space of a soccer pitch before taking some photos outside the Pavilions and continuing back to our cars, satiated. The entire experience was extremely well-curated, with intuitive environmental design and little surprises that were delightful to behold, like the intimate wood-lined Viewing Gallery, and Richard Serra’s maze-like sculpture that opens up into what feels like a secret space. It was an immensely rich experience, but it was only afterwards that I realized we had left some nooks and crannies of the property unexplored, missing a few outdoor sculptures and the rest of the forest path. I’ll have my finger on the button tomorrow to get tickets for a future visit!

While photographs of the indoor art is not permitted, Glenstone’s outdoor sculptures are considered installations so photos are ok (just don’t touch them, even the smallest amount of skin oil can damage the art over time). Follow Glenstone on Instagram for more information about their monthly Instameets, when the museum opens early specifically for indoor photography.

There's a lot of hype around Rothy's - do you sometimes wonder if they're really worth it? I wore mine every day for a month; click through for three ways they rock and three ways they don't.

Of course I love the juxtaposition of architecture and fashion. The unique self-tie on this Rebecca Minkoff skirt and oversized rattan hoops from Mint + Major looked organic yet still geometric against the grey concrete at Glenstone. Flame red Rothy’s flats added a focal point to the soft spring look.