Exhibitions

This is what you'll find in the galleries this weekend.

Main Gallery, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha

Hours: Thursday, Noon–5 p.m.; Friday, Noon–5 p.m.; Saturday, Noon–5 p.m.; Sunday, Noon–5 p.m.

Thesis Art Exhibition

The Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery showcases the work of the Class of 2019’s thesis students in the Department of Art and Art History’s Art Studio Program. Each student is invited to select a single work from their Senior Thesis Exhibition for this year-end showcase of drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, mixed media, and architecture. Co-Sponsored by University Relations. There will be a reception with refreshments in honor of the seniors Saturday, May 25, from 3:30 p.m.–5 p.m.

Davison Art Center

Hours: Thursday, Noon–4 p.m.; Friday, Noon–4 p.m.; Saturday, Noon–4 p.m.; Sunday, Noon–4 p.m.

For Effect: Emphatic Bodies from the Renaissance to the Industrial Age

From eye rolls to crude hand gestures to statement jewelry—we exaggerate with our bodies as much, if not more so, than with our words. Yet, more than 500 years after the Renaissance, conceptions of the “normal” body remain grounded in ideals of the human body as mathematically proportional and bare. This exhibition presents bodies exaggerated in their accouterments, pose, and anatomical proportion from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Across artistic movements and historical contexts, artists exaggerated bodies to evoke from spectators responses as varied as sympathy and shock, offense and desire.

Exhibitions Celebrating 50 Years of African American Studies at Wesleyan

Olin Library, 1st Floor

History of African American Studies, Black Life on campus and in Middletown. #WesAfAm50

"Wesleyan's First African American Graduate: The Life of Thomas F. Barnswell, class of 1862." Curated by Aviv Rau '19, as a final project for Prof. Jesse Nasta's Black Middletown Lives course

"The Fisk Hall Takeover and Black Student Activism in Middletown, 1965-1969." Curated by Arianne Philemy, '21, as a final project for Prof. Jesse Nasta's Black Middletown Lives course

"Unburying Black Middletown History: Archaeological Findings From the Beman Triangle." Curated by Elias Benda '19, as a final project for Prof. Jesse Nasta's Black Middletown Lives course

Olin Music Library

The history of Jazz and Ebony Singers at Wes. #WesAfAm50

Fisk Hall

Commemorating the Fisk Takeover. #WesAfAm50

Usdan, 1st Floor

The History of the Ankh, Wesleyan's Student of Color Publication & Black Life at Wesleyan through the years. #WesAfAm50

Daniel Family Commons, Usdan

Books in Black Studies by Wesleyan Faculty and Alumni authors. #WesAfAm50

Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore

Special section on books in Black Studies by Wesleyan authors #WesAfAm50

Olin Memorial Library

Hours: Open during regular library hours; Location: Special Collections & Archives exhibition cases, 1st floor, Olin Library

Rick Nicita Gallery, Center for Film Studies

Hours: Friday, 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. & Saturday, 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

James Cagney: Top of the World!

The exhibit includes posters, photographs, and letters illustrating the career of James Cagney.   Cagney’s acting career began in vaudeville and Broadway in the 1920s.  He arrived in Hollywood in 1930 as a featured player in Sinner’s Holiday, the film adaptation of the Broadway play Penny Arcade, and stayed for 31 years. While Cagney is remembered for his tough guy roles in The Public Enemy (1931), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), and White Heat (1949), he won his only Academy Award for his performance as the multi-talented entertainer, George M. Cohan, in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).  Highlights in the gallery exhibit include a rare half sheet for Yankee Doodle Dandy, an original one sheet for One, Two, Three (1961) designed by Saul Bass, and a letter from Cagney to director Raoul Walsh, who directed four of Cagney’s films.

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center

Hours: Thursday, Noon–4 p.m.; Friday, Noon–4 p.m.; Saturday, Noon–4 p.m.

Sound of Korea

Curated by Phoebe Junghee Shin, Sound of Korea presents five landscape photographs by Young-Il Kim as well as two single–channel videos. His photography became well-known when he did some official photography related to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

This exhibition will conclude Saturday, May 25.

Joe Webb Peoples Museum

Hours: Thursday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; Saturday, Noon–4 p.m.; Sunday, Noon–4 p.m.

The Natural History Collections at Wesleyan University (before 1957 exhibited in the Orange Judd Museum of Natural History) are being renovated and brought back to life after decades of neglect and storage in attics and basements!  Visit our new exhibits on the ground floor of Exley close to the Science Library, including Shelley the Glyptodon, our recently restored and re-exhibited Deinotherium skull, and the ‘Tree of Life’ exhibit in the lobby of Exley, celebrating the diversity of life on Earth as seen in our collections). We also have renovated the taxidermy bird exhibit in Shanklin (2^nd floor), and the Joe Webb Peoples Museum on the 4^th Floor of Exley.