MET Presents Portraits of Philip Glass

The Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, the Metropolitan Opera's exhibition space for contemporary visual art, will present Chuck Close Philip Glass 40 Years, a new exhibition which opens on Monday, March 17. The exhibition features 18 portraits of composer Philip Glass created by Chuck Close between 1968 and 2008. Over the last 40 years, Close has created more than 100 different studies of Glass, in many different mediums. The exhibition is being presented in conjunction with the Met premiere of Glass's Satyagraha, an opera about Gandhi's formative years in South Africa, which opens in a new stage production on April 11. The exhibition runs through May 2008.

Best known for his photo-realist portraits, Chuck Close often uses family members and friends as his models and says his portraits of Glass have been largely based on one photograph that Close took in 1969. "We were both unknown at the time. I wanted everyday people, not superstars. His Medusa-like hair is great for formal invention because it lends itself so well to fingerprints or dots."  Close returned to that same photograph often, continually seeing something new and says now, "It's a fun ride to watch Phil. It's an immense pleasure to be involved with someone's work over time, and to watch the changes and permutations and the growth and development."

Organized by Gallery Met Director Dodie Kazanjian, the exhibition includes paintings, photographs, lithographs, tapestries, etchings, and engravings, in mediums ranging from acrylic to watercolor and daguerreotype to stamp pad ink. The works are on loan from the Whitney Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, private owners, and the artist.

"Being able to see so many Chuck Close portraits of Philip Glass gathered together in one room is a unique aesthetic experience" says Ms. Kazanjian.  "It not only celebrates forty years of a remarkable friendship, but reveals the many worlds that can exist within a single image.  What put this idea in my mind was hearing Philip Glass's musical portrait of Chuck Close for the first time a few years ago."

Gallery visitors will also be able to hear Philip Glass's Musical Portrait of Chuck Close during the exhibition.  The 15-minute piece for solo piano premiered at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 2005.

Gallery Met is free and open to the public seven days a week.  The hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on performance days (closing at 6 p.m. on non-performance days) and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m.