Revisiting The Student Union Collection: The 2017 Art Acquisition Trip to New York
Post by Will Coleburn
Winston Wächter Fine Art
The next time you walk through Benson, I encourage you to look around with fresh eyes.
It’s easy for us to allow the paintings and photographs that hang on the walls there to fade into the background—to become a part of the scenery that we never give a second glance. We scurry past them on our way to meetings or plop our backpacks down on a couch on the third floor and turn our backs to them as we type away at a paper.
But I think that we miss out on a vital opportunity afforded to us when we fail to engage with these pieces. The art on the walls of Benson—together with a portion of those homed in the likes of Reynolda Hall, Wake Downtown, and the Byrum Welcome Center—forms part of the University’s Student Union Collection of Contemporary Art. There are some recognizable names, even to people who’ve never cracked the cover of an art history book, and some interesting pieces, no matter your familiarity with the art world.
But perhaps the most notable attribute of the collection is that it is entirely student-selected.
Every four years since 1963, a group of students has traveled to New York City to purchase art on behalf of the University. And this year, six students—myself included—had the honor of joining their ranks. Over Spring Break, we visited galleries throughout the city with one primary charge: To return with works of art that represented our moment in history.
Of course, to do that justice, our work had to begin long before the trip itself. We did our research on the front end, amassing a collection of artists of interest that by late January surpassed the one-hundred-and-fifty mark. And then we began the daunting process of narrowing down that pool. A lot of thought went into our “short list,” but in the end, we were still left with enough artists and galleries to easily fill our four short days in the city.
And I can assure you that they were full.
While I can’t say that participating in the trip was a particularly restful experience, it was most definitely worth the long days and the brisk walks through the biting cold of a New York winter. There are few feelings like walking up to a gallery and being directed to the back room where the pieces you requested—and sometimes a few surprises—are hung for display. After the back-and-forth of countless phone calls and emails and the task of sifting through price sheets and availability, to finally experience firsthand the artworks that you have spent months looking at on a computer screen is a reward in and of itself.
Of course, it was almost inevitable that we would find ourselves falling in love with far more art than we could ever afford. But after much thought and discussion, the six of us were able to land on five pieces that we knew we would be excited to share with the Wake Forest community.
James Cohan
SAPAR Contemporary
Jack Shainman Gallery
Since not everyone will have the experience of gallery-hopping in the hub of the art world, this collection aims to bring the gallery to you. And this fall, the newest additions from artists Richard Mosse, Shirin Neshat, Sun Xun, Faig Ahmed, and Mona Hatoum will go on display. In the meantime, though, I encourage you to revisit some of those framed works you’ve undoubtedly hurried by in the past.
Maybe you’ll notice something you hadn’t before.
Will Coleburn is a junior studio art and Spanish double-major from Atlanta, GA. A presidential scholar of the visual arts at Wake Forest University, he hopes to foster connections between the Scales Fine Arts Center and the rest of campus, as well as promote student engagement with art through the START Gallery.