New Public Art Collection at Wesleyan
Over the past year, visitors to campus have encountered artwork including sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, and new media in unexpected places, including the Frank Center for Public Affairs and Olin Memorial Library. Many of the works, part of Wesleyan’s new Public Art Collection, explore a diverse array of themes and offer the opportunity for interdisciplinary engagement.
"Positioned in prominent, often surprising places, these pieces demonstrate the centrality of the arts to everything we do at Wesleyan," said Mary-Jane Rubenstein, dean of the Social Sciences and professor of Religion, Philosophy, Science in Society, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. "They give vibrant, concrete, and often beautiful expression to the social-scientific work of understanding human history, thought, and behavior."
Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee '00 said that the works from Wesleyan's Public Art Collection are featured on campus not for their decorative value or to beautify spaces, but as another form of critical inquiry. “Contemporary art, as another form of intellectual research, can reveal to us so much about our world today,” Chaffee said. “We’re grateful to the Valentine Family for their generosity in helping Wesleyan start a Public Art Collection that reflects, as well as critiques, the social, critical, and political values of our student body, faculty, and staff.”
Chaffee worked closely with the Valentine Family—Dean Valentine P'22 and Amy Adelson P'22, who donated artworks valued at over $1 million dollars to Wesleyan—to determine which works would be displayed on campus, thinking through the nature of what would be relevant in each space.
“Amy and I believe strongly that our donations should further the values that make art possible in the first place: respect for the individual, respect for open inquiry, and respect for creative freedom,” Valentine said. “Our daughter Emma [Valentine ’22]’s experience convinced us Wesleyan was committed to instilling those values in its students, which is why we felt these works—some of which are difficult and challenging—couldn’t find a better home.”
This spring, Wesleyan launched a digital guide to the works on display in partnership with Bloomberg Connects, an app which offers access to exhibitions, collections, and renowned artists at over 900 museums and cultural organizations. Several students at Wesleyan created content over the past year for the collection and the app as part of internships with the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.
Exhibitions Manager Rosemary Lennox said the Bloomberg Connects project was meaningful for her student workers. “By connecting the Public Art Collection to opportunities for students to research, write, and think critically about art in a public context, it underscored the Collection’s educational value at Wesleyan,” Lennox said. “Wesleyan’s presence on the Bloomberg Connects app reflects our commitment to increasing the visibility and accessibility of not only the Public Art Collection, but also exhibitions and collections across campus.”
“Creating content for Bloomberg was an immersive experience that allowed me to develop a better understanding of all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes when working in a gallery,” said Safiya Sekkm-Miles '25.
Parker Ito's painting People tell me everyday that I’m really creative (peace on earth) (A Lil’ Taste of Cheeto in the Night Installation) (2013–2015) was displayed in the North Gallery of the Zilkha Gallery from January through March 2025. Prior to that, Spencer Klink '24 had researched Ito’s work The Agony and the Ecstasy (2014), which can be seen on the fourth floor of the Frank Center, describing Ito as a painter who plays at the limits of the sculptural.
Klink said drafting the wall labels was an eye-opening experience for him, helping him apply his knowledge in a real-world context. “The works on view represent an international, expansive perspective on the arts and are all deeply experimental in varying ways, which reshaped how I approach my own creative practices,” Klink said.
Noah Shacknai '25 said writing about the artists was an exciting and rewarding experience, allowing him to learn about their practices and spend time with their work. “I think it’s amazing to have such a breadth of work in one building, and that you can do your schoolwork next to, say, an awesome reflective painting by Parker Ito,” he said.
Works currently on display in Olin Library include Jacolby Satterwhite's En Plein Air: Vassaglage I (2014), which was fabricated through virtual reality technologies evoking both painting and video games; and two untitled paintings from 2009 by Kaari Upson, which were created by capturing smoke via oil on panel.
Valentine was a supporter of Upson’s career. The first retrospective exhibition featuring Upson’s works following her untimely death in 2021 is now on display at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark through October 2025. Another work by Upson will be shown on campus this fall in the Zilkha Gallery group exhibition DFT 2025, co-curated by Chaffee and Sullivan Fellow in Art Salim Green '20.
Explore more of Wesleyan’s Public Art Collection at Bloomberg Connects.
