The Wexner Center for the Arts presents To Begin, Again: A Prehistory of the Wex, 1968—89 February 5–May 8

With To Begin, Again: A Prehistory of the Wex, 1968–89, the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University shares the rich legacy of contemporary arts programming at the school, exploring the cultural ferment from which the center emerged in 1989 through the largest presentation to date of art from the university’s permanent collection. 

The exhibition, on view February 5–May 8, will fill the Wex’s galleries with pieces by more than 70 artists that were acquired or presented by Ohio State during the 1970s and ’80s, including major works by Futura2000, Eva Hesse, Adrian Piper, Sol LeWitt, and Frank Stella. 

Inspired by the uprisings of 2020, To Begin, Again traces this story back to the formative revolts of the late 1960s, a period that saw artists, activists, and students demand systemic change from mainstream institutions. As flashpoints of dissent during this era, universities responded to protest in various ways—frequently with violent force; but also with progressive reforms, including the creation of the first Black, women’s, Latinx, and American Indian studies programs, and the elevation of contemporary art and popular culture within the academic hierarchy.

Ohio State was no exception. Rocked by protests that brought the campus to a standstill in April and May of 1970, the university sought to chart a new direction in the years that followed. Emblematic of the changing culture was the school’s decision to give a recent MFA graduate, Betty Collings, the directorship of the University Gallery of Fine Art—a new position at Ohio State, which, unlike other institutions in the Big Ten, lacked an independent art museum. Between 1975 and 1980, Collings launched an acclaimed program of contemporary exhibitions—with solo projects by Sam Gilliam, Chris Burden, Jackie Ferrara, Joseph E. Yoakum, and Joan Brown, among others—and began collecting major works by artists such as Hesse, LeWitt, Stella, Robert Smithson, Donald Judd, and Agnes Denes. 

The University Gallery under Collings served as a multidisciplinary gathering place where visiting artists, critics, and curators, including New Museum founding Director Marcia Tucker and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center’s Alanna Heiss, engaged students and faculty in peer-to-peer dialogue. In the 1980s, with new Gallery Director Jonathan Green, the university set in motion a plan to create a comprehensive visual arts center at Ohio State, drawing international attention with the architectural competition that yielded Peter Eisenman’s winning design for the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts (the name was later shortened to reflect the center’s multidisciplinary focus). 

During Green’s tenure, the gallery also took an openly activist stance. Several nationally significant, community-led exhibitions were generated, including All’s Fair: Love and War in New Feminist Art, curated by Lucy Lippard; RAPE, the first national touring show to address the politics of sexual violence; and AIDS: The Artists’ Response, which brought the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to Columbus in 1989. This evolution in the gallery’s programming also led to acquisitions by socially engaged artists like Piper, Vito Acconci, Benny Andrews, and Nancy Spero. And it dovetailed with the work of faculty in Ohio State’s Department of Photography and Cinema, including Allan Sekula, Thom Andersen, and Noël Burch, whose critical approach to visual culture and ideology set an important precedent for the future Wexner Center.

To Begin, Again charts this important shift in contemporary arts programming at the university and is organized around a selection of more than 80 works acquired by the former University Gallery, which the Wex has stewarded since its founding. Also included in the presentation are works by former Ohio State faculty, students, and visiting artists, such as Mary Albrecht, John DeFazio, Michael Keyes, and Robert J. Stull.

Standouts include a 36-foot-long mural painting by legendary graffiti artist Futura2000 (his moniker at the time, since shortened to Futura), which has not been shown since it was first created on campus in 1984; Piper’s immersive installation Four Intruders Plus Alarm Systems (1980); Hesse’s large-scale sculpture Area (1968); and Stella’s monumental metal-relief painting Puerto Rican Blue Pigeon (1976). Selected loaned artworks, including the “relic” from Chris Burden’s performance Shadow (1976) and a multimedia installation from artist Ann Fessler, will enhance the presentation, bringing into focus the cultural life of the university and the wider region during the era.

To Begin, Again: A Prehistory of the Wex, 1968-89 is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Associate Curator of Exhibitions Daniel Marcus with Curatorial Associate Kristin Helmick-Brunet and Curatorial Intern Arielle Irizarry. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated gallery guide featuring archival documentation alongside essays by Marcus and art historian Julian Myers-Szupinska, with reflections from Irizarry and former University Gallery staffers Stephanie K. Blackwood and Mark Svede.