Commemorated with unveiling of the late Keith Haring’s painting, Brazil, at 2012 Spring Gala at Strathmore with Glenstone founders Mitchell and Emily Rales
Eliot Pfanstiehl, CEO of Strathmore, and Mitchell and Emily Rales, founders of Glenstone in Potomac, announce a new collaboration of these two world-class arts venues in Montgomery County at the Strathmore Spring Gala on Saturday, April 21, 2012. Strathmore celebrates the new partnership with the unveiling of Keith Haring’sBrazil, on loan to Strathmore from the Glenstone collection. The painting is one of the lastthat Haring produced before his death at age 31 from AIDS-related illness, and has never before been shown in the D.C. area.
Brazil will be introduced by Eliot Pfanstiehl and Mitchell and Emily Rales.
“Strathmore provides transcendent arts experiences for thousands of visitors and concertgoers each year, and Glenstone houses an exceptional collection of contemporary art. It seemed natural for our world-class institutions to come together, and for Strathmore to share this rich and significant cultural asset with the community,” said Pfanstiehl.
The partnership unites two unrivaled Montgomery County arts institutions, encouraging future collaboration and illustrating the abundance of important arts resources in the county. Artwork from Glenstone will be on view in the Music Center’s Lockheed Martin Lobby and will rotate annually, corresponding with Strathmore’s concert season.
“The Glenstone Foundation is thrilled to establish this partnership with Strathmore and further share its art and sculpture with the community,” said Mitchell Rales. “We have always welcomed the public to Glenstone to freely enjoy its unique experience of art, architecture and landscape, and this new relationship expands those opportunities.” Rales said he hopes to expand gallery space at Glenstone to display even more of its substantial art collection and to make it even more accessible to the community.
Keith Haring’s style is one of the most recognizable and best-loved of late 20th century American art. He first came to prominence during the 1980s, experimenting with new modes and methods of bridging the gulf between “high” and “low” culture. He drew inspiration from the world around him, including hip-hop, graffiti art and cartoon drawing. His iconic images extend Pop art’s premise and explore its implications for a younger generation.
Brazil was painted in 1989 and is titled for a place Haring visited eagerly and often. It can be read as a landscape, pitting the all-over cacophony of a dense urban tangle with a quiet expanse of ocean in the bottom right corner. However, this piece has also been interpreted as an elegy. Like the life of its creator, the painting’s pattern is interrupted, knowingly unfinished, a mark cut off before reaching its logical conclusion.
The Keith Haring Foundation was established in 1989 to assist AIDS-related and children’s charities, and maintains the largest resource of archives on the late artist, Keith Haring. The Foundation’s website is http://www.haring.com.
WHEN Saturday, April 21, 2012
Gala begins at 5:30 p.m.
Introduction ofBrazil at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE Music Center at Strathmore
5301 Tuckerman Lane
North Bethesda, MD 20852
(301) 581-5100
