Think museum evenings mean the quiet hush of patrons admiring sculptures, intellectuals sipping sherry during an art history lecture, or a guard admonishing a viewer not to get too close to the paintings? Think again.
The Phillips Collection’s Thursday Phillips after 5 evening offered chances to admire art and even learn about art history, but it also expressed the joy of a Latin American street festival, with tequila tastings, District of Columbia food trucks, Latin jazz, a juggler, and a scavenger hunt, as well as a guest lecture by George Washington University professor Bibiana Obler about Wassily Kandinsky.
The Phillips Collection director Dorothy Kosinski praised the enthusiasm of the staff and volunteers who collaborate to make the Phillips after 5 evenings successful.
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Outside, knots of happily chattering people waited to purchase gourmet French bread sandwiches (Rolling Ficelle), Ethiopian plates (Fojol Bros), lobster rolls (Red Hook Lobster Pound), and cupcakes (Curbside Cupcakes). Other guests sipped wine in the enclosed Hunter Courtyard or wandered over to the partnering Hillyer Art Space to listen to the band Wytold.
The contagious fiesta spilled into the indoor space. In the bookstore, former Greenbelter Dan Searing, co-owner of Room 11, author of “The Punch Bowl” and mixologist extraordinaire, educated patrons about tequila, as people sampled several varieties.
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A Latin Jazz band, The Mark Merella Quartet, entertained visitors in the elegant wood-paneled Music Room, the site of the Phillips Sunday afternoon concerts. The docent informed us that the Phillips family originally refurbished the handsome room as a gift to their sons, who played billiards there!
Patrons craving quiet could slip into the Rothko Room, where serenity pervaded the gallery hung with Mark Rothko’s abstractions of shimmering pure color.
On the third floor was “The Triumphs of Abstraction,” show, featuring two special exhibits: “Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series,” which consisted of eight dynamic metal Frank Stella sculptures, inspired by Domenico Scarlatti’s harpsichord sonatas, and “Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border,” which offered an in-depth look at a Kandinsky painting and its preliminary studies.
Though you’ve missed the last of the August weekly Phillips after 5 evenings, you can still catch these programs on the first Thursday of the month, starting with this Thursday, Sept. 1, from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Give Phillips after 5 a try.
Currently, the evening is included in your admission to The Phillips Collection, which is on a donation basis. However, if you wish to see exhibit-related items while participating in Phillips after 5, admission is $12 for adults, $10 for students with valid ID and for seniors 62 and over, and free if you are 18 or under. Explore a different theme as seasons and exhibits change, but it always promises a good time.