Story Archive

Story Archive

  • Art Matters by Deborah Prentice

    Art Matters by Deborah Prentice

    One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job as Princeton’s provost is overseeing the Princeton University Art Museum. The Museum, with its extraordinary collections, talented staff, and generous supporters, is a continual source of exciting new projects and creative...
  • Bwa and Wé Masks

    Bwa and Wé Masks

    Two significant additions have recently been made to the Art Museum’s noteworthy collection of African masks: a Bwa buffalo mask and a Wé mask, from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast respectively, regions under French colonial rule from the late nineteenth...
  • Staying Connected to Art and Each Other

    Staying Connected to Art and Each Other

    In mid-March, just as the Art Museum’s Student Advisory Board (SAB) was diligently planning its spring programming, the University announced that all students were to leave campus for the remainder of the semester. SAB, which fosters student involvement with the...
  • Translating Object-Based Learning into Virtual Discussions

    Translating Object-Based Learning into Virtual Discussions

    When we all learned that University teaching was moving online, we quickly began exploring virtual formats that could most closely re-create the experience of discussing objects in person. A huge team effort led by the Museum’s communication and information department...
  • Art Matters by Eve Aschheim, Lecturer in Visual Arts

    Art Matters by Eve Aschheim, Lecturer in Visual Arts

    Artworks come to life when we see them freshly, beyond the received conventions. As a faculty member, I’ve been fortunate to experience the Museum at close range.
  • Faculty Voices | Reflections: Illness of Time

    Faculty Voices | Reflections: Illness of Time

    Roaming through the luminously assembled States of Health , we faced the specter of death, scientific unknowns, and social tissues gone awry. And we learned that belonging to the kingdom of well-being is certainly not equally distributed.
  • Art Matters by Robbie LeDesma, PhD candidate, Molecular Biology, Princeton University

    Art Matters by Robbie LeDesma, PhD candidate, Molecular Biology, Princeton University

    After beginning my graduate studies at Princeton, I fell in love with the Art Museum’s collections, often spending my lunch breaks and free time wandering the galleries and attending the Museum’s educational lectures and programs. These events fostered a growing...
  • Rethinking Assumptions through Museum Teaching

    Rethinking Assumptions through Museum Teaching

    Sometimes, or even ideally, a University class visit to the Art Museum is designed not to illustrate course material but rather to upend it, the encounter with works of art productively undoing assumptions and unsettling students’ well-worn ways of engaging...
  • The Eternal Feast: Banqueting in Chinese Art from the 10th to the 14th Century

    The Eternal Feast: Banqueting in Chinese Art from the 10th to the 14th Century

    Feasting was an important social and ritual activity in China from the Bronze Age through the imperial period and retains a strong cultural significance to this day. The Eternal Feast illuminates the impact of the culture of feasting on China...