ART MUSEUM
Inside The Paper
ALUMNI DONORS PAGE 4
FIRST LOOK AT THE MUSEUM PAGE 5
INSIDE THE PAVILIONS PAGE 6
ART MUSEUM, BY THE NUMBERS PAGE 16
24 HOURS IN THE ART MUSEUM PAGE 18
THE MUSEUM CONFRONTS ITS PAST PAGE 22
DOES THE NEW SPACE DELIVER? PAGE 24
MOSAIC RESTAURANT PAGE 26
STAFF PICKS: FIVE MUST-SEE ITEMS PAGE 28
THE MUSEUM’S BEST STUDY SPOTS PAGE 29
DAVID ADJAYE’S LEGACY PAGE 30
ARCHIVES: MUSEUM RENOVATIONS PAGE 31
editor-in-chief
Miriam Waldvogel ’26
business manager
Jessica Funk ’26
149TH MANAGING BOARD
upper management
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head archives editor
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149TH BUSINESS BOARD
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directors
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business manager emeritus
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149TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD
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software engineers
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THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY Malia Gaviola ’26
president
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Thomas E. Weber ’89
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treasurer
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treasurer
assistant
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trustees
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Juan Fajardo ’28
Suzanne Dance ’96
Gabriel Debenedetti ’12
Stephen Fuzesi ’00
Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05
Michael Grabell ’03
Danielle Ivory ’05
Rick Klein ’98
James T. MacGregor ’66
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Abigail Williams ’14
Tyler Woulfe ’07
trustees ex officio
Miriam Waldvogel ’26
Jessica Funk ’26
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
EDITOR’S NOTE
When I arrived at Princeton in Fall 2023, the space between Whig-Clio and Brown Hall was a wide pit hidden behind construction barriers. Someday, people said, it would be an impressive art museum, housing a portion of Princeton’s even more impressive collection. One day, they promised, we would be able to see Andy Warhol’s “Blue Marilyn” and Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge” between classes.
Over the last two years, I have watched the art museum slowly take form, starting with metal stakes in the ground, then grey concrete slabs, then cantilevers and ribbed exteriors. Years of students graduated — including the Class of 2025, who experienced a whole four years of construction, never seeing inside the museum — and years of students complained about its solemn grey exterior.
Now, finally, we get to look inside. On Oct. 31, 2025, the art museum re- opened with a 24-hour opening event. Students, professors, staff, town resi- dents, alumni, and children flowed through. With nine pavilions, a restaurant, views of the old halls surrounding it, and almost 5,000 works of art, the museum is the centerpiece of campus and a node connecting the University to the outside world.
In this first-of-its-kind magazine from The Daily Princetonian, you’ll find reviews of each of the pavilions, the hallways and transition spaces, and the new Mosaic restaurant, and bundles of illuminating photos. To bring you this issue, our reporters spoke to curators, tried $13 matcha, and stayed in the art museum for every moment of its 24-hour opening.
Victoria Davies is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Victoria Davies Head News Editor
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Art museum galleries and pavilions dedicated to alumni donors
By Nora Linssen & Victoria Davies Contributing News Writer & Head News Editor
Ahead of the formal opening of the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) next week, the Office of Advancement announced the dedication of 15 galleries and three pavilions on Oct. 7 following a years-long Venture Forward campaign.
The donations to PUAM include three “leadership gifts” from Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger ’76, Preston Haskell III ’60, and the Fisher family, including Bill Fisher ’79.
“Princeton has a phenomenal art collection and it’s appropriate for a university like Princeton to have a museum like that,” Bill Fisher said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
The Grand Hall — a three-story open room that is able to be converted into a 250-person lecture hall — was supported by a gift from the Fisher family, including Bill Fisher, his parents Doris and Don Fisher, the founders of clothing line GAP and honorary members of the Class of 1976. The family also includes his brothers Bob Fisher ’76 and John Fisher ’83, the principal owner of the Oakland Athletics, and his daughter and son-in-law Remy Fisher Wilkinson ’14 and Shane Wilkinson ’13.
“There’s sculpture and art all around you, and it just seemed like a beautiful place to hang out,” Bill Fisher said.
The rest of the first floor is primarily split into the Haskell Education Center and several locations named for the Nashers and Haemiseggers: the Nancy A. Nasher & David J. Haemisegger Family Hall and Grand Stair lead up to the second floor, and the temporary exhibition space currently hosting “Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay” is named for their son, David Nasher Haemisegger ’22. The official title of Art Museum Director James Stewart is also named for Nasher and Haemisegger.
American Art is housed in the Wilmerding Pavilion, named by Louisa Stude Sarofim in honor of late Princeton professor of art and archaeology John Wilmerding, who was significant in the development of the Princeton American Studies department. The pavilion contains five galleries dedicated to the Anschutz family.
“I loved the old museum and am very excited to see how the art that I remember so well from my days as a student shines in the new spaces,” Sarah Anschutz ’93 wrote to the ‘Prince.’
She told the ‘Prince’ that Wilmerding “was one of my thesis advisors and I took many of his courses while I was
at Princeton. We kept in touch over the years after I had graduated and [he] was helping my father transform his personal art collection into a small museum.”
Additionally, the Paul & Heather Haaga Conservation Studios in the south of the new building was named in honor of Paul G. Haaga Jr. ’70 & Heather Sturt Haaga. In the previous art museum, conservation space was limited to just one room; now, there are two floors spanning the south pavilion dedicated to conservation.
Heather Haaga is an honorary member of the Class of 1970.
“[Conservation] was a function that, in the past, Princeton had to obtain from others,” Heather Haaga wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ “Now art works can be preserved on campus without sending them out to another museum.”
In addition, the Haagas hope that students will be able to “learn the painstaking work of art repair and conservation.”
“It is a small world of incredibly talented people that keep art safe for future generations and now Princeton will be able to grow that world of experts,” Heather Haaga wrote.
Beyond monetary donations, art donations have been crucial to the opening of the new museum. The tem-
porary exhibition, Princeton Collects, celebrates the more-than 2,000 works donated by more than 200 members of the Princeton community in the last four years, with around 150 works on show until March 2026.
Many other donors have also been honored through various rooms and galleries in the new museum, with two other pavilions named for major gifts from Yan Huo GS ’94 and Dori Walton ’78, Bill Walton ’74, and their children.
Paul Haaga wrote that he is excited about the opportunity to “display a much greater percentage of the museum’s iconic collection.”
Having seen the gallery space in the Spring, Sarah Anschutz wrote she “was impressed by how beautiful the art looks in the new gallery spaces.”
“[It’s] a beautifully contained unit that has traffic flow through all different directions around the building, and is integral and fits into the University campus,” Bill Fisher said.
Nora Linssen is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Boston.
Victoria Davies is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Plymouth, England and typically covers University operations and the Princeton University Art Museum.
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Students looking at portraits of Elizabeth Allan Marquand (Sargent, 1887) and Center of Creation (Michael) (Moore, 2019)
‘Absolutely coming back’: Students get first look inside art museum
By Leela Hensler, Emily Chien, and Sena Chang Staff, Contributing, & Senior News Writers
In an evening featuring music, mocktails, and movies, students received an exclusive first look inside the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) on Saturday, Oct. 25.
The preview, which ran from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., drew an estimated 3,000 attendees and featured Grammy-winning producer Jazzy Jeff as its headliner, alongside performances from student groups. Many students expressed that PUAM was significantly more impressive than anticipated, and that they plan on returning for the official 24-hour opening on Oct. 31.
“[PUAM] actually exceeded my expectations. I think the architecture is really beautiful,” Corinne Jordan ’27 told The Daily Princetonian. “I am definitely coming back — it seems like a lovely place to study, or just hang out.”
“I’m absolutely coming back,” Stephanie Ko ’28 told the ‘Prince.’
“We forget, on the day-to-day, where we are and what kind of institution Princeton is — we get bogged down by our classwork and stuff,” Ko said. “But when we get the chance to slow down and look around, it’s very exciting to see the things that we have access to.”
Julianne Somar ’26, an Architecture major, said that “the initial walk-in was quite magnificent. Being able to see what finally has been revealed and unfolded and seeing the grandeur of the space is really, really nice to take in.”
Seven of the nine pavilions within the museum are only partially walled off to the ceiling, creating open galleries. This open space is intended to “awaken a sense of discovery,” PUAM director James Steward said.
“There’s no path we’re telling you you have to take, there’s no sequence,” Steward told the ‘Prince.’ He said that museum-goers are able to discover
cultures as they please.
Megan Kang GS said that she was “awestruck” by both the museum’s architecture, and described the curation of the art on display as “very playful and very surprising.”
“One of the first pieces I saw was [a] Rothko next to [an] indigenous painting,” she said. “The curation of old and new is really unique, and something you don’t see in a lot of museums.”
Amelia Melendez ’28 said that once she stepped inside, she was enthralled. “It’s like everything catches your eye ... [there’s] so much information and so
Students also appreciated the broad range of art showcased in the museum, with collections dedicated to European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and American, among others. The collections also range across different mediums, including pottery, mosaics, landscapes, furniture, and sculpture.
Sophie Gao ’28 highlighted how parts of PUAM art directly related to the rich history of both the city of Princeton and Princeton University itself, providing a grounded perspective that sets the PUAM apart. Charles Wilson Peale’s “George Washington at
many stories.”
PUAM is not only spatially non-traditional, but also visually unorthodox. Its sprawling modern facade stands out compared to its 19th-century neighboring buildings. The building has garnered criticism from students for its hulking stone design and tendency during construction to block the fastest paths across campus.
“I must admit, it was very annoying with the construction blocking all the routes [to class], freshman, sophomore, junior year, [and] part of senior year,” Joyce Chan ’26 said. However, after visiting the museum, Chan felt it was worth the wait. “I wasn’t expecting to see all these rare art pieces on display.” she said.
seeing a puzzle activity featuring paintings in the gallery.
“Tons of people are getting roped in and absorbed into the activity, so [they’re] appreciating the art in [another] way,” he said.
Unlike Reudelhuber, Officer Simon Sosa, one of the many cultural properties officers who will be working at the museum, didn’t expect to spend his nights at an art museum. “When I came to Princeton as a PSafe officer, I wanted to be more like a police officer,” he said.
“You try to make it fun,” Sosa said. “I like to look at the artwork. Sometimes, if I’m standing for too long, I’ll go read the descriptions.”
The museum will host a 24-hour opening event from 5 p.m. on Oct. 31 to 5 p.m. on Nov. 1, which will be open to members of the larger Princeton community as well as students. Many of the attendees at Saturday’s event planned to return to the grand opening.
Reudelhuber also looked forward to the opportunity to return to the museum as a student rather than an employee. “I’ll get to sort of experience all the levels [and] all the different displays,” he said.
the Battle of Princeton,” for one, sits at the entrance to the American Art pavilion and was installed in Nassau Hall for over two centuries.
“You realize where Princeton was situated in the context of [American history],” Gao told the ‘Prince.’
Throughout the night, PUAM hosted film screenings of “Night at the Museum” (2006) and its sequel alongside live performances from slam-poetry group Songline, eXpressions Dance Company, improv group Quipfire! and Princeton University Ballet. TigerTale also released a limited-edition pin featuring the art museum building designed by Kellen Ducey ’26.
Luke Reudelhuber ’29, who was working for the event planning company Rafanelli, was in charge of over-
“I feel like the vibe here tonight is really good, but I think next weekend it’ll be even better,” Laura Green ’29 said. “I think the community will want to see it too. It’s a great museum.”
Leela Hensler is a staff News writer and a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Berkeley, Calif. and can be reached at leela[at]princeton.edu.
Emily Chien is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Arcadia, Calif., and can be reached at emilychien@princeton.edu.
Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students Pointing at Paintings.
PUAM’s Modern and Contemporary art pavilion contrasts cultures and textures
By Lulu Mangriotis Contributing News Writer
The Princeton University Art Museum’s Modern and Contemporary Art Pavilion, curated by Alexandra Foradas, spans textures, mediums, and styles, with the viewer seeing a new juxtaposition of pieces no matter where they stand.
The pavilion starts strong with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Notary” (1983) at the entryway. In this piece, and many of his others, Basquiat does not erase his work, instead letting the viewer in on his creative process. He crosses out words or letters just to later rewrite them, blurring the lines between draft and final product.
The pavilion’s walls do not reach the ceiling, lending an openness to the walk and encouraging viewers to look out across the gallery, where they will be greeted by a lively horizon at nearly any angle. In many places, it is possible to look through doorways to see large slices of the gallery, hosting a collection of radically different and curious pieces that draw you further in.
The collection boasts another Basquiat, a Yayoi Kusama painting, and multiple Willem de Kooning works. Further into the exhibit, different textures permeate the walls in a simple yet striking way. A frameless canvas with crumpled paper, glitter, sequins, and strings covered in acrylic paint — an untitled piece by Howardena Doreen Pindell (1977) — provides a range of textures in a contemporary medium.
Pindell was ahead of her time —
much of her art is similar to contemporary works. She used a hole punch to draw the viewer’s eye to specific points of light and color, according to the piece’s didactic. More typical works from the 1970s might include Andy Warhol’s bold striking prints and colors, but Pindell subverts this preconception with its simplistic and “undone” characteristics.
Foradas’s predecessor, Kelly Baum, started the curation for the pavilion, prioritizing the way pieces interact when choosing artworks and positions.
“My predecessor and colleagues chose and juxtaposed objects in ways that encourage the viewer to consider the impact of cultural contact and exchange,” Foradas wrote to The Daily Princetonian.
Whether steeped in meaning or entirely meaningless, the art in the pavilion has been organized to foster curiosity and inspire.
The gallery juxtaposes Sanford Bigger’s “Tunic” (2003), a feathered puffer coat, with Elias Sime’s “TIGHTROPE: ECHO?!” a rectangular sculpture made of reclaimed electrical wire and components. The aesthetic contrast of these two pieces in such proximity reminds the viewer of how conventional artistic boundaries are broken by contemporary artists. The sharpness of “TIGHTROPE: ECHO?!” stands out against the colored feathers of Bigger’s work.
Perhaps the most charming part of the pavilion is the Hans & Donna Sternberg Viewing Room attached in the northeastern-most corner of the art museum. There, the viewer leaves the layered views of textured contemporary art and finds a single work: Jane Irish’s “Cosmos Beyond Atrocity” (2024), embedded in the ceiling.
The captivating piece was commissioned for this specific room of the art museum, making for a cohesive viewing experience. While a mesmerizing distortion of angles and pastel colors warp the viewer’s perspective, an arm emerges from the sky and reaches towards them.
“The Museum was keen to work with a regionally based artist committed to the continuing vitality of painting; we were thrilled that Jane was so keen to mine the collections for inspiration and to draw on the past,” Museum Director James Steward said in a statement.
The new viewing room was adapted in modern style from a similar room in the old art museum.
“The other viewing room felt a little bit more like a living space with a restful feeling,” said Princeton resident Matthew Feuer. “[The new viewing room] is more integrated into the museum.”
However, Feuer noted that there were clear resemblances between the two: both featured identical circular win-
dows and were surrounded by trees, including the dawn redwood marking the eastern-most point the new museum reaches. Feuer also noted that the old room didn’t have any art — it was only a domestic escape from the rest of the museum.
“[The old room] was charming, but it was nothing like this,” Feuer said.
The new Sternberg Viewing Room coaxes the viewer into meditation, providing a haven of natural and artistic surroundings.
The pavilion as a whole will be ever-changing, as the museum will periodically update the modern art displayed.
Foradas has spoken with students and professors alike to gauge what the Princeton community looks for in contemporary art.
“A few key themes emerge: landscapes and borders, activism and liberation, ways of (hi)storytelling, questioning abstraction, and the relationship between art and performance and other types of liveness,” according to Foradas.
In the meantime, there is much art in which to indulge. This pavilion is sure to have something grab your attention, either with an eye-opening piece or a striking view across many.
Lulu Mangriotis is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New York City.
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
“Blubber” by Ellen Gallagher in the Modern Art pavilion.
PUAM’s Ancient Mediterranean pavilion steps into the past, with a modern twist
By Zane Mills VanWicklen Contributing Prospect Writer
In the Princeton University Art Museum’s Ancient Mediterranean pavilion, each step carries you across centuries and civilizations.
Entering the pavilion, you tread upon a glass floor, beneath which lies a mosaic pavement once used as flooring in an elite villa in the ancient city of Antioch, now modern-day Turkey. You then pass a mixing bowl from the 4th century B.C.E. in southern Italy, featuring rich shades of black, orange, and white, which create stark contrasts and dazzling designs. Across from this, you see another vessel with art of a similar style; yet, rather than depicting a Greek god or a Roman emperor, it depicts modern city streets, telephone poles, and graffiti. This is the work of Roberto Lugo, a modern ceramicist who takes inspiration from ancient Greek art for his modern day works.
In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Associate Curator of Ancient Mediterranean Art Carolyn Laferrière calls this contrast another one of the “surprising juxtapositions” the pavilion presents to museum visitors. Through this decision, she hopes to inspire “curiosity,” inviting people to ask “questions or … rethink assumptions.”
Laferrière also says that, in the Ancient Mediterranean, art was used to tell stories. In Lugo’s vase, one continues to see how “art is a really powerful vehicle for telling the stories of your community and of people who did extraordinary things.” Visitors are asked not to simply glance at a wall of ceramics but rather delve into the details of each piece, to ask how the works were made in the ancient world and how they are made today.
Echoing this point, art and archeology professor John Sigmier says
these surprising juxtapositions “make the past seem not so alien.” While the objects in the pavilion may appear “strange” at first, their pairing with a contemporary piece of a similar visual idiom allows visitors to view depictions of life in the ancient world as they would those of life in the 21st century.
The pavilion puts pieces that span great gaps in time and space in conversation with one another, seeking to accomplish the museum’s goal of promoting “dialogue among diverse audiences, foster[ing] inquiry and curiosity, and afford[ing] encounters that excite the imagination,” as stated in its mission statement. Sigmier said that the space achieves this goal and that he plans to bring the students in his courses to the pavilion and say to them, “Here’s what we’re talking about.”
The pavilion situates itself within a larger global community. Laferrière chose pieces from the ancient civilizations of “Near East, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and the Roman and Byzantine Empires,” to reveal that objects, people, and ideas moved across the Ancient Mediterranean; each piece is placed in conversation with one another. A visitor walking past various sculptures of Aphrodite from different time periods and places experiences the similarities between the pieces and the inspirations the ancient peoples took from one another.
One fascinating element of the pavilion is that these pieces not only tell ancient stories but also give insight into modern geopolitical relationships. For example, former art and archeology professor Ernest DeWald Class of 1916 GS discovered that a marble head of a goat on display in the old art museum had been stolen from the Capitoline Museums in Rome during World War II. After learning this, the museum returned the piece to its arightful owners in
1953. According to Lafèrriere, Italy was so grateful for the gesture and, knowing it to be a favorite of the students, returned it to Princeton. Beside the piece is a photo of the ceremony in which it was bestowed upon the University.
These works thus span great gaps both in time and space. The visitor, in perusing the pieces, travels these distances with single steps, one moment examining a vase from fourth century B.C.E. Greece and another a fragmented statue from second century C.E. Rome. In organizing the pieces, Laferrière aimed to highlight the “range of lived experience that was available in the ancient world.”
Each of the works holds a story. Whether in “surprising juxtapositions” or clear pairings, the artwork whispers tales of war, love, ritual, and everyday life to its visitors.
The pavilion presents these works in all their uniqueness and splendor, telling a story not just of the diversity of these civilizations and the connections to modernity
but of a world in which we are all connected, where we are inspired by one another to bring forth newness and originality.
Laferrière wants visitors to leave with a sense of “curiosity” and “to think through some of the questions that the ancient objects are asking of themselves,” for many of them we continue to ponder today.
Zane Mills VanWicklen is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. He can be reached at zm6261@princeton.edu.
ZANE MILLS VANWICKLEN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Two-story conservation studios open alongside new art museum
By Victoria Davies Head News Editor
For the last five years, Princeton University Art Museum conservators have been working out of a temporary building 15 minutes away from the University, overseeing the repair of over 300 objects and paintings.
Now, the conservation team has a new home in the brand new, two-story Paul & Heather Haaga Conservation Studios, equipped with suction tables, fume hoods, and an X-ray room in the new art museum building.
“Having more space and more room for specialized equipment and materials is going to really expand what we’re able to do internally as a department,” said Elena Torok, who works on object conservation, during a tour of the studio.
Bart Devolder, a conservator specializing in painting conservation, has been with the art museum since before the new space was designed. He worked closely with Samuel Anderson Architects to design a conservation studio with the right space and equipment to bring in conservators with different specializations.
The two conservators moved into the nearly pristine studios only recently, with conservation work yet to start.
“We’ve started to make sure that everything that’s here functions properly,” Devolder said.
A significant amount of space on the first floor of the conservation studios is dedicated to paper. This includes a suction table — a table with a humidity-controlled acrylic dome over it — as well as a giant sink fitted with taps for deionized and heated deionized water, and tables that are lit from below.
The other side of the room is primarily for object conservation, with a fume hood — a cupboard designed to extract vapors and fumes — for small objects and moveable tables for larger artifacts. There are also a number of “trunks,” which have a similar function to the fume hoods.
“We can sit at a table and work and then pull the solvent extraction over to us,” Torok said.
The first floor also includes a room for repair work “that’s loud or noisy,” according to Devolder, and is also equipped with a laser.
The second floor of the studios features a mixture of adjustable easels and microscopes, alongside suction and regular tables. The pyramid-shaped roof of the pavilion is visible from the inside, designed to only let in sunlight from the north. Devolder notes that painters and conservators in the northern hemisphere have preferred north light for centuries. It’s favored for being softer, more consistent, and colder than south light.
The second floor also includes a large suction table — custom-made and shipped from Australia — which heats up and will be used for painting conservation. Devolder plans to use it for Richard Phillips’s 1716 painting “Jonathan Belcher (1682–1757),” which awaits repair on a nearby table.
“This one would be really nice to now put on this table, do the suction which helps to flatten down,” he said. “The next thing would be to fix these tears … hopefully I can re-stretch it and then clean it.”
A lead-lined X-ray room on the same floor will allow conservators to examine the condition of artworks and identify forgeries, among other purposes.
The conservation studio shares the pavilion with one of the six object-study rooms in the museum, which are spaces designed for teaching and close study of objects. Arranged seminar-style, the object-study room has a wall of cabinets displaying a colorful assortment of objects: dyes, glues, and small artworks used for demonstrations.
While Princeton students won’t be able to do conservation work in the studio or the object-study room, the conservators plan to host lecture-style sessions and demonstrations explaining conservation processes while showcasing artworks.
Devolder and Torok hope to bring
in summer interns from different conservation programs across the country. This is not currently an option available to Princeton students, although Torok is “hopeful that there will be chances in the future to work with undergraduates in an internship role. We’re just not quite there yet.”
With the new space almost fully operational, both conservators are looking forward to getting started properly.
“A lot of the objects that come through the studio come to us because they’ve been requested to go on view … so as all of that starts to roll forward, we’ll have new projects in the studio too,” Torok said.
The conservation studios will have visiting hours each month, with the next scheduled for Dec. 11 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Victoria Davies is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Plymouth, England and typically covers University operations and the Princeton University Art Museum.
VICTORIA DAVIES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Table in the Conservation Studio.
Despite crowded central displays, the Ancient Americas pavilion gives some works space to breathe
By Cynthia Torres Associate News Editor
In the Art of the Ancient Americas pavilion at the new Princeton University Art Museum, the first thing one notices is the crowded, dense displays in glass cases wrapping around the museum’s central Grand Hall.
But while plates are next to plates and vases next to vases, the dense displays appear less important than the thoughtfully displayed objects found in the rest of the pavilion that are given appropriate space, sometimes with 360 degrees of viewing.
“The Princeton Vase,” one of the museum’s most iconic pieces, has its own dedicated case in the pavilion. A Mayan chocolate-drinking cup inscribed in codex style, the vase presents a story depicting human sacrifice, calling upon the viewer to continually rotate around the vase and reveal the story told through rich iconography.
The pavilion also features several other Mayan drinking cups, called uk’ibs, with inscribed images and a story told by rotating the vase. Some other Mayan drinking cups tell more pivotal stories for Mayan history. One uk’ib depicts the story of the infamous defeat of major underworld Gods, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and another tells the story of the annual cycle of rebirth of the maize god, Hun Hunahpu. The displayed uk’ibs date back to the second half of the first millennium.
Outside of ceramic vases and plates, ceramic figures are on display throughout the pavilion. The Jaina figurines were particularly eye-catching,
displayed in a line directly at eye level with their earth tones contrasting with the navy blue wall behind them.
The Jaina figurines were from 600–900 A.D. and associated with the islands of Jaina and Uaymil off the west coast of Mexico. Each of the figures represented different noble Mayans with various court positions and genders. The didactic explains that these figurines were often unearthed by looters and presumably associated with burials.
Museum visitors Kruti Ramani and Sabrina Yanetta described the collection as “very expansive.”
“There’s so much to see, to look at. You see it once, and then you walk around the second time you see
stuff you didn’t see the first time,” Yanetta said, describing the circles she walked in the relatively small gallery.
Representing over 5,000 years of art crafted by indigenous Americans from Alaska to Chile, the collection varied across many empires across the North and South American continents.
Another compelling aspect of the Ancient Americas pavilion was the small study cases, something not available in most other pavilions in the museum. Featuring objects smaller than an inch long, the study tables provide a space in the center of the museum to examine individual objects.
Artifacts include a series of metal figures and ornaments from Qhapaq
Hucha, an important sacrificial site for subjects of the Inca Empire. Metal headdress ornaments and chest plates from Peru during the first millennium are also available for close study.
The Art of the Ancient Americans pavilion is not ancient in any way. The pavilion is modern and thoughtfully juxtaposes the centuries-old artwork with a sleek design, breathing in new life and appreciation to previously forgotten art.
Cynthia Torres is an associate News editor and archives contributor. She is from New Bedford, Mass. and typically covers University administration. She can be reached at ct3968[at]princeton.edu.
CYNTHIA TORRES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Jaina figurines.
CYNTHIA TORRES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Displays surrounding the Grand Hall.
CYNTHIA TORRES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Entrance of the Art of the Ancient Americas pavilion.
CYNTHIA TORRES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN The “Princeton Vase” displayed in the Art of the Ancient Americas.
Transcending dimension: PUAM showcases photography through Peter Bunnell’s objects
By Michael Grasso
Contributing Prospect Writer
What does a photograph look like? Is it just a picture pasted on a wall, or is it something you can hold and move with? Maybe, according to Peter Bunnell, it’s all of the above.
This is the question the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) wrestles with in its first photography exhibit. The idea comes from Bunnell, a legend in the history of photography and the first endowed professor of photography history in the U.S. His quote, “What Photographs Look Like,” is the core theme of the gallery. The description on the wall reads, “Bunnell used the phrase to upend his students’ expectations of photographs as strictly two dimensional prints and to invite delight in the expansive nature of the medium.” I took a walk through the gallery to determine if it effectively conveys this theme of transcendence through medium and surprise. The pavilion has only one way in: a confrontation with Narcissus. The colossal piece that characterizes the gallery, Vik Muniz’s Narcissus from his series “Pictures of Junk,” towers over its onlookers. Due to its size, it completely blocks the viewers from seeing the rest of the gallery; one must travel around Narcissus in order to see the rest. Playing with perspective and distance, Narcis-
sus delights from afar with its reproduction of the 16th century painting by Caravaggio.
Its magnificence reveals itself by looking closer and seeing that it is entirely composed of pieces of trash, arranged by Muniz’s assistants. Not just a photograph, but a living piece of artwork and sculpture, Narcissus encapsulates the idea of surpassing the medium of photography and entering other worlds. This makes it an apt choice to begin the viewer’s experience of this gallery.
“I think it’s fantastic. I think it manages to pack an encyclopedic history of photography into an intimate space,” said Monica Bravo, an assistant professor of art and archaeology who specializes in the history of photography and modern art in the Americas.
Bunnell’s legacy is celebrated with a display of his personal collection of “What Photographs Look Like,” which includes objects like magazines, postcards, and even an albumen print of Nassau Hall. Bravo told the ‘Prince’ this collection of Bunnell’s provides “a range of different photographic processes as well as formats, and any idea of photography in an expanded field too.”
This collection surpasses the two dimensions that often constrict photography, and there are plenty of videos featured next to images around the gallery. Bravo expressed how she thought the
two could be mixed, saying, “I actually always believe that photography should be taught in relation to other media because photography exists in a larger visual ecosystem. So for me, it was very effective to see photography placed next to video.”
However, one piece fits awkwardly amid the rest. Wu Tsang’s Miss Communication and Mr:Re is a two-channel film, presented by two video screens parallel to each other. Mounted on the back of a dividing wall, Tsang’s film is accompanied by two speakers projecting separate voicemail messages of the subjects shown on screen. They look directly at the camera, expressionless. Although video and photography work in relation to each other, this piece interacts oddly with its environment.
The two voices are muffled in the noise of the other, and the flat facial expressions provide little to no enrichment when regarding for more than a couple seconds. It lacks congruency with the rest of the gallery due to its awkward placement, facing Bunnell’s collections and mounted on a faux-wall. A little forgettable — and more experimental than the rest — Miss Communication and Mr:Re transcends the realm of photography solely by being a film, not as an interesting merge of the two art forms.
Besides that piece, the gallery comes together cohesively. The multitudes of
black and white filling the walls mask subversive elements of the artwork. One may wonder why a drawing finds itself in the photography gallery, but Sir John Herschel’s “Castle of Chillon” camera lucida drawing evokes the beginnings of the art form. The camera lucida was an optical device invented to superimpose an image of a certain object on a canvas, allowing for smooth tracing.
Paired with the history of photography, Bunnell’s legacy is at the forefront of this first exhibition. Bunnell died in September 2021, just mere months after the old art museum was demolished. People familiar with the history of photography will likely be familiar with his impact, and the importance of his centrality in the exhibit. However, if this is someone’s first entrance into photography, they may not understand the emphasis.
That does not mean they will not learn from him, as Bunnell was, above all, a teacher. His teaching persists in PUAM’s photography gallery, as the photographs, photo sculptures, camera lucidas, and more show “what photographs look like.”
Michael Grasso is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. He can be reached at mg7604[at] princeton.edu.
MICHAEL GRASSO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A portrait of Peter Bunnell, along with some of his collected photographs.
MICHAEL GRASSO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
‘Europe is and has long been a crossroads’: the European art pavilion’s new perspective on a global continent
By Devon Williams
Contributing Prospect Writer
As I first stepped into the European Art pavilion, I found myself surrounded by color: maroon, gold, and blue hues covered the walls as ceramics, paintings, and prints from diverse eras, artists, and regions converged. Yet the pavilion goes beyond unifying an eclectic color palette — it also offers a powerful message on cultural intersection.
One of the works I was most moved by was the renowned Alfred Stevens painting, “The Psyché (My Studio).” Its intricately painted refined art studio space, with the delicate woman peeking from behind the mirror to meet my eye in the reflection drawing me over for a closer look, strikingly contrasts a painting by the lesser known Berta Wetman’s “Interior.” Wetman’s painting mirrors the subject matter and perspective of Stevens’ work, but with a grittier, simpler beauty absent of a female muse.
The curatorial choice of creating conversations between known and lessknown artists complemented one another, encouraging me to learn more about every piece. The pairings brought pieces unfamiliar to me to the forefront, expanding the context and meaning of the piece alone into one that encompasses the works on the walls surrounding it and the pavilion itself.
Even the corridor that flanks the pavilion’s entrance highlights pieces of seemingly non-European origin. Three central objects dominate the corridor: the Incan Cup of Montezuma brought to Spain in the 17th century, an Indian ewer made for the
British Empire, and a West African ivory spoon brought to Portugal. According to Associate Curator Alexandra Letvin, the pieces are “not European, but that circulated in Europe.”
While this may appear strange, Letvin says this choice was intentional: “objects that circulated in Europe had a European provenance unintentionally, or were intentionally made for European audiences.”
Letvin added that she aimed to “show Europe looking outwards, not just looking inwards.”
“Europe is and has long been a crossroads — a diverse continent with many cultural traditions,” said Annemarie Ike GS ’23, Lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program and Art History Ph.D.. Display of European art has often centered on white, traditional voices while obscuring the diverse and complex nature of populations colonized and integrated. Yet the new openness and interdisciplinary nature of the museum help convey this reality, as a metaphor for the continent itself: porous, dynamic, and in constant exchange.
In the University’s old art museum, European art dominated the main level, leaving little room for art of other cultures. The new museum equalizes this space, with each pavilion sharing roughly the same footprint, and an open floorplan that allows each room to flow into the other. As I walked through and inevitably got lost, this openness and exchange between cultures and histories certainly came through in proximity between diverse pieces alone.
“The collection is laid out more or less chronologically and geographically,” Letvin explains. The Art Museum has long been a teaching center for professors and students in the Art History department, and Letvin has intentionally maintained this teachability by keeping content in thematic groupings in addition to chronological organization.
To achieve this fluidity, Letvin outlined three driving points, beginning with, “Europe’s place within a global world,” she explained. Works from India, Africa, and more find a home directly in the pavilion, creating a new and complex vision
of Europe and its relationship with other countries.
“I like to push back on the term masterpiece. And so one thing that we started using when we were thinking about these galleries, but really the whole museum was the idea of anchor objects,” Letvin said. Anchor objects are used to engage other works to generate new interpretations of the work. Examples range from Gérôme’s “Napoleon in Egypt” and Monet’s “Water Lilies” to works by unknown artists.
The well-known works are recognizable but don’t dominate — they contextualize and inform the works that may be more obscure. This representation of lesser-known works and works across cultures even lends itself to the more famous pieces like Manet’s Woman with a Cigarette, which, as Iker noted, “because of the uncertainties about the identity of its subject, seems to be at home in a new way in the new [pavilion].”
Exploring the pavilion’s four galleries, the works seemed to flow into one another, a woven tapestry of intersecting media, cultures, and time periods. The contrast between these artistic factors and origins kept me curious about every piece and its place in the world, and that curiosity could have kept me walking around for hours.
This ambitious philosophy of centering non-European art is realized through Letvin’s choice to host a case of works in
the central corridor of the pavilion as opposed to a single “important painting.” The case of works highlights the “circulation of commodities throughout Europe and so, in a sense, becomes a more personal reflection of the stories that these three objects are telling.” This recenters high art on a personal level, a theme that aids the sense of an interconnected global community on an intimate scale while simultaneously rewriting what defines ‘European art.’ Many visitors come to museums seeking the most famous pieces, but in doing so, they miss the chance to truly learn from what they are experiencing. In choosing pieces that are less well known or unconventionally European, visitors can expand their idea of what art is worthy of witnessing.
Through this focus on exchange in geography, layout, and media, Letvin leaves visitors with a clear message: “I hope that they leave the pavilion thinking that Europe is more connected to the world around it, and I also hope that they will see that Europe’s boundaries shift over time ... I hope that people understand [the Art Museum] as a place within a connected world.”
Devon Williams is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2028. She can be reached at dw9268@princeton.edu.
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Viewer in European Gallery.
New museum’s Asian art pavilion undertakes a near-impossible task to mixed success
By Kate Chun Contributing Prospect Writer
Showcasing artworks from Chinese handscrolls to Pakistani Buddhist figurines, the Asian Art Pavilion in the newly renovated Princeton University Art Museum undertakes a near-impossible task: representing the vastness of Asia in a room only slightly larger than a lecture hall. I entered the Pavilion with the expectation that the layout of the room would be by country — and my expectations were both met and broken.
“It’s an incredibly difficult thing to bring together objects from the enormous spatial, temporal, and cultural reach of what we describe in one short word as ‘Asia,’” Professor of Japanese Art History Rachel Saunders wrote to The Daily Princetonian.
As I entered, I immediately noticed that East Asian cultures were integrated into varying themes, such as ‘Lacquered Objects.’ This section featured lacquerware, a medium that originated in ancient China. With a collection spanning both time and geography, from the Chinese Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BCE), the Japanese Edo period (1603–1868), and the Iranian Safavid dynasty (1501–1736), this art form highlighted the spread of Chinese influence across the continent, traced through a singular common medium.
The Pavilion’s South Asian and Southeast Asian pieces were isolated on the left side of the gallery, creating a feeling of division. As far as I could tell, the only representation of South and Southeast Asia comprised a small case featuring Buddhist sculptures and religious figurines from Cambodia, Pakistan, and India.
Given that there is also a collection of Buddhist sculptures housed in a hallway outside of the pavilion, I felt the section lacked a
variety in subject matter. While I expected to see secular items like household objects and ceramics, as I had seen in other parts of the gallery, the display was limited to religious items.
As the back wall inside the left wing was dedicated to the Silk Road — thus featuring more Chinese art — a South Asian and Southeast Asian presence felt like an afterthought.
The pavilion’s curator, Zoe Kwok, is “a Chinese specialist that is working with other colleagues to curate the entire collection, leading to people moving outside of their specialities,” Yuchen Wang GS, a Ph.D. student in the Art and Archaeology department, said.
While the museum is only currently showing 5 percent of its whole collection, according to Wang, the Pavilion may begin to rotate through its pieces.
However, there were also aspects of the pavilion I enjoyed. I appreciated its overall structure, which fluidly blended scrolls, vases, and paintings, holistically embodying the vibrant history of East Asia.
Instead of the familiar cultural segmentation or chronological order that can constrain Asian history to Western stereotypes, the room’s venture to interweave varying pieces — old and modern; Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Tibetan — placing them in conversation with one another, showcased a more nuanced perspective.
Even within the same culture, pieces interacted thoughtfully with one another. A case featuring Korean ceramics — including pieces such as a maebyeong, a Korean plum-shaped bottle from the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392); an 18th-century porcelain jar; and ceramics by modern artist Young Sook Park — led me to compare the diverse styles throughout Korean history.
On the right side of the pavilion,
I was greeted by a fascinating contrast of Japanese prints. The layout guides viewers through the transition from the Edo period’s woodblock prints of ordinary people to landscape images of bridges and gates, showcasing the impact of photography on Japanese art. Here, I could see the clash between modernity and the desire to hold onto traditional styles. I appreciated the pavilion’s decision to include modern photographs.
I also appreciated the pavilion’s juxtaposition of two large scrolls at the center of the back of the room. One was a handscroll by one of the Four Great Masters of Song calligraphy, Huang Tingjian, the other a more modern 2010 woodcut scroll by Ji Yunfei. The former was an example of “running script,” while the latter depicted the Three Gorges Dam migration and its effects on millions of people. The calligraphy scroll was filled with elegant characters, a traditional Chinese art form seen across various media. On the other hand, Ji’s scroll could be compared to a watercolor painting, with sketches of humans
and natural scenes to tell a story not with words, but visceral images. I enjoyed how much the works emphasized the artist’s role as a storyteller, their thoughts flowing out in different directions.
“[The Pavillon’s curators] reshape ways of how people understand. Instead of telling a narrative, they are trying to engage the viewers to think. The Museum is a space for viewers in dialogue,” Wang said.
Kate Chun is a writer for The Prospect and part of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at kc6370@princeton. edu.
seated in “royal-ease” pose, ca. 1250”.
American art pavilion sparks dialogue on America’s past and future
By Caroline Naughton
Contributing Prospect writer
Standing valiantly in front of an active battleground and Nassau Hall in the distance, “George Washington at the Battle of Princeton” by Charles Willson Peale was the first painting acquired by Princeton and, fittingly, the first one to be hung in the new art museum itself. The painting is a reminder of the longstanding history of Princeton and acts as a beacon for visitors of the Wilmerding Pavilion of American Art, asking them to explore and confront both the curated space and their ideas of America itself.
While the organization of the gallery can be disorienting at times, the pavilion is an intriguing take on the difficult task of representing the complexities of American history and identity.
While I had briefly spent some time in the pavilion during the museum’s student preview on Oct. 24, it wasn’t until my personal tour with Karl Kusserow, senior curator of the American Art Pavilion, that I truly digested it in full.
“A hallmark of this institution,” Kusserow said, “is the kind of mixing up of works of art from different places and different periods of time to suggest different ways of understanding. This whole installation is organized around that kind of juxtaposition.”
To this point, the pavilion attempts to prompt viewers to piece together the nuances of American history themselves, inviting discussions on protest movements, gender, and environmental justice.
The first example of this juxtaposition is in the arrangement of the George Washington display. The famous painting that greets all visitors of the pavilion is flanked by two busts of the first president. One, is cast in bronze and was previously owned by Thomas Jefferson, while the other, made of a metallic mirror-like material, was created by Hugh Hayden, a Native American artist. The piece, titled “Hanodaya:yas (Town Destroyer): Reflect,” was specially commissioned for this exhibit. Made
from a highly reflective material, the bust forces viewers to confront their own image and, in turn, Washington’s imprint on America. The bust’s base is made from a salvaged piece of ash to represent the burning of Native American villages.
When discussing the mistreatment of Native Americans and African Americans throughout American history, Kusserow said, “We try, in this pavilion, to engage the idea that it’s not just a matter of victimhood.
“They expressed their own agency in sort of combating a lot of the injustices that were inflicted on them,” he added.
Indeed, interconnectedness is the pavilion’s guiding principle. Pieces that seem unrelated at first glance enter into conversation when placed together. For example, “The Culprit Fay” by John Adams Jackson is a sculpture carved from marble from Carrara, a region in Italy scarred by centuries of mining exploitation. This sculpture sits opposite a clay jar by Pueblo artist Maria Martinez, who gathered her materials from the earth after seeking spiritual permission. Together, these pieces illustrate the contrast between Western exploitation of nature and Indigenous stewardship of it.
Opposite this arrangement is a display with similar messaging, an arrangement of various still lifes from the 19th century. Hung in chronological order, the earliest painting depicts natural produce with an arrangement of peaches. However, as the chronology advances, nature soon gives way to the man-made, transitioning to natural products like cheese and champagne, and eventually to solely manufactured goods. This progression reflects a shift from harmony with nature to domination over it, mirroring America’s industrial and environmental trajectory. In the very back of the pavilion lies the Arts and Crafts section, by far my favorite as someone interested in both textiles and ceramics. In a glass box display, there were several Tiffany glass designs and ceramic items, all in organic shapes that contrasted the manufac-
tured approach of the time period. The display’s ceramic items are classified as Newcomb Pottery, a form that evolved from Tulane’s Newcomb College for women.
During a lull in our conversation, Kusserow pointed me toward his favorite wall in the pavilion, showcasing two quaint landscapes: one of ships in a harbor, and the other a nameless marsh. While unassuming beside the Bierstadt landscape, these pieces emphasize the interconnected thinking behind the curation of this gallery.
Another notable moment of contrast lies around the corner from the Washington portrait in the Libby Anschutz Gallery. Here, Renee Cox’s revisionist photograph, “The Signing,” emulates the famous “The Signing of the Constitution” painting, replacing the founding fathers with people of color. Just beside this powerful photograph sits the massive painting by Thomas Sully of Mrs. Reverdy Johnson, the wife of Reverdy Johnson, the lawyer of the slaveowner in the Dred Scott decision. The connection between the two pieces took me aback; it felt as though history was confronting itself in this little corner of the museum.
While thought-provoking, the displays can also read as busy and disjoint-
ed. I felt the logic behind the pavilion’s curation best revealed itself after taking extended time to linger on each work. While it is likely not possible for a casual museum guest to reflect on each arrangement in the American pavilion, it is a meaningful endeavor for those who take the time.
In the end, the pavilion’s strength lies not in seamless order, but in its deliberate tension. Those who take the time to read, to look, and to think will find that the pavilion offers not just a gallery of art, but a space for a dialogue that challenges, questions, and, ultimately reimagines the story of a nation.
Caroline Naughton is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at cn8578[at]princeton.edu.
CAROLINE NAUGHTON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
“George Washington at the Battle of Princeton” by Charles Willson Peale at the Princeton University Art Museum.
‘Princeton Collects’ is too chaotic for cohesion
By Sena Chang Senior News Writer
In no other room than the “Princeton Collects” exhibition could a punch bowl from China’s Qing Dynasty, a skirt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a Willem de Kooning oil painting sit so close to one other. The exhibition — borderless, eclectic, and cross-temporal — is located in the southeast pavilion of the new art museum, one of two main temporary exhibition spaces.
“Princeton Collects” celebrates more than 2,000 works donated to the museum by more than 200 members of the Princeton community between 2021 and 2025. Around 150 works are on view in this inaugural exhibition. From abstract Expressionist canvases to 19th-century British portraiture and Chinese earthenware, “it is … impossible to impose on such sprawling gifts a single organizing principle,” the pavilion description reads.
At first glance, the effect can be dizzying. The high-ceilinged room, combined with the lack of a cohesive theme or motif, struggles to orient the visitor as they enter. Immediately after a towering wall featuring donors’ names, sculptures of all sizes stand at the center, with photographs of tattoos and oil paintings housed in frames big and small on the wall behind. Everything and nothing draws your attention.
The further you venture inside, the more messy the pavilion appears. Ai Weiwei’s “Porcelain Cube” (2009), an ornate three-dimensional ceramic cube, sits in the center of a collection of oil paintings. Nari Ward’s “Scape” (2012), a shredded fabric ladder, stands just around the corner from the cube. At every turn, you are hit with an amalgamation of diverse artistic media — fabric, ceramic, painting, and
photography — that at times feel overwhelming and excessive.
Even the positioning of certain objects — for example, a Qing-era Punch bowl sitting below an etching and engraving depicting William Hogarth’s “The Gate of Calais or The Roast Beef of Old England” (1748–49) — can seem almost arbitrarily placed with no concern for visual or historical continuity.
Upon closer inspection, however, viewers will see a deeper artistic connection between the two works.
As the punch bowl’s didactic reveals, the Chinese pottery showcases a reinterpretation of Hogarth’s painting. The two works, in effect, embody the circulation of ideas and aesthetics along trade routes that connected two very different worlds.
In these ways, moments of cohesion emerge from the exhibition’s apparent chaos as artworks reveal unexpected continuities across such an eclectic collection. Connections are made between seemingly disparate artworks, helping the viewer make sense of the visual commotion that permeates the pavilion.
For all its eclecticism, visitors enjoyed the diverse works of art showcased in the pavilion.
“I like that the colors don’t match,” said Elizabeth Watson of Ewing, N.J. “The pieces go together, but it’s because somebody had a wonderfully fun time figuring out what goes with something else — I think that adds to the visual intrigue.”
Amid the visual noise of the space, anchoring the exhibition is Irish artist Sean Scully’s “Night and Day” (2012), a massive painting of white, gray, and milky rectangles. Around it, tigers on ancient papyrus, porcelain deities, and oil landscapes draw viewers into fleeting visual affinities rather than clear narratives. Meanwhile, the set of
Asian scrolls adjacent to Scully’s painting features works from 1761, the mid-1800s, and 2006, spanning Japan and China. These unexpected dialogues between time and geography lend credence to the pavilion’s description of a “museum in miniature.”
“The collection is so big, and the way the materials are presented just keeps me interested,” Watson said. “Just keeps me looking, and looking, and looking, and exclaiming.”
Still, “Princeton Collects” occasionally feels less cohesive than other pavilions in the museum; in some ways, its lack of a unifying artistic theme feels foreign within the broader museum, where pavilions are mainly grouped by geography.
While the exhibition succeeds as a study in contrast and cross-cultural influences, its spatial isolation raises questions about curatorial strategy. The thematic looseness — though deliberate — can leave visitors unsure of where to look or how to linger. The exhibition seems noticeably quieter than its neigh -
boring collections, with viewers drifting in and out in a matter of minutes.
The spirit of the exhibition, however, is a fitting debut for the new museum, inviting viewers to reconsider how art travels, adapts, and accrues meaning across time and culture.
“Princeton Collects” mirrors the museum’s own moment of renewal, using the renovated architecture and non-hierarchical organization to invite visitors to think about connections between eras, materials, and makers.
The pavilion’s simple layout, coupled with lots of open space, makes the pavilion easily re-purposable for future temporary exhibitions. But the current exhibition fails to bring together the space.
Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.
Eclectic pairings and interconnecting cultures: Transition spaces in the art museum
By Haeon Lee & Amaya Taylor Contributing News Writers
In the Princeton University Art Museum, the art is everywhere — including in the hallways.
Upon ascending the Grand Stair of the museum up to the collections, the first pieces of art that many visitors see are those of the Orientation Gallery, which rings around the main staircase. Before even entering one of the seven pavilions dedicated to art, visitors pass through various hallways and transitional areas that double as compact galleries dedicated to art from the Islamic World, Latin America, Native North America, South Asia, and Africa.
The Orientation Gallery makes up one of the most unique areas of the whole museum, with works such as Andy Warhol’s “Blue Marilyn” (1962) juxtaposed against a long assortment of European Renaissance stained glass pieces.
“I like the mix of modern and ancient, the mix of time frames. I can’t think of another museum where I’ve seen that,” said Sherry Friend, docent at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, during a visit to the museum.
“The opening to the second floor of the museum is highlighting the fame of the museum, the fame of Princeton, and the caliber of art that they’re able to collect with their means,” said Madison Anderson ’27, an art history major and former member of the museum’s Student Advisory Board.
“Some galleries also serve as circulation spaces, we don’t see any of the gallery spaces in the building as ‘hallways,’” said Art Museum spokesperson Morgan Gengo.
Rather than simply connecting one gallery to the next, the circulation spaces present visitors with an unpredictable and diverse array of pieces. Tall glass cases above the Grand Hall, for instance, house a dizzying array of bowls, vases, and objects from a broad array of cultures. Meanwhile,
the Cross-Collections Gallery, located just outside of the Asian Art Pavilion, builds Josiah McElheny’s “A Twilight Labyrinth (Alchemy)” (2019) into a wall near a Spanish alabaster carving of a knight from circa 1500.
But unlike areas like American, modern, and ancient Mediterranean art, which have dedicated pavilions, the museum’s African and Latin American art is largely showcased in the hallways.
“The museum, I know for a fact, has a very strong Latin American art collection … and the Latin American Gallery of Art is quite literally a corner,” Anderson told the ‘Prince.’
Perrin Lathrop GS ’21, Associate Curator of African Art at the museum, wrote in a statement that the “interstitial galleries emphasize ideas of cultural contact and exchange.” African and Latin American art galleries “are present throughout the museum and are inescapable,” she added.
“You can’t escape the fact that there will be art in that hallway,” Anderson said. “You’re going to have to pass by it, so why not look?”
Before the museum’s renovation, European, American, and contemporary art dominated the main upstairs
floor, while non-Western art was placed in the downstairs galleries, where there were fewer visitors.
“The new museum, by putting art on the same physical level, helps convey that all art is important, it’s valuable,” said Annemarie Iker GS ’24, a scholar of modern art.
“The African art galleries have increased in size by some 700% from the previous building and are strategically located adjacent to the galleries for art of the Islamic world and the ancient Mediterranean,” Lathrop added.
Many of the pieces on display in the African art collection are attributed to an “Artist unrecorded,” a label that Lathrop wrote “recognizes the individuality of the person who created the work, before providing information about their culture and geographic origin.”
Similarly, the Latin American and North Native American art galleries, located by the entrance to the American art pavilion, include many ceramic figures, vessels, and objects by artists that are unidentified, such as the “Model yaakw (canoe)” (before 1882). Most modern art from the cultures showcased in the transition spaces, however, is located in the Modern and
Contemporary art pavilion.
“I’m not sure how much of this at the time people would have thought of as art,” Friend said, adding that the frequency of unnamed artists for certain cultures may be a consequence of the blurred line between art and product.
From iconic paintings of mythological and historical scenes to obscure Attic and ceramic Olmec pottery, the museum’s transitional spaces have much to offer. Despite not having their own dedicated pavilions, the African, South Asian, Native North American, and Latin American art scattered across the museum’s second-floor galleries provides visitors with the opportunity to learn about the cultural histories, traditions, and identities of artists from around the world.
Haeon Lee is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Brooklyn, N.Y. and can be reached at hl1389[at]princeton.edu.
Amaya Taylor is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Memphis, Tenn. and can be reached at at9074[at] princeton.edu.
After nearly five years of renovations, the Princeton University Art Museum has reopened, showcasing more than 3,000 pieces from a collection of over 50,000. Featuring household names like Monet and Warhol alongside works from more obscure or even unidentified artists, the data reveals a varied curation across over 500 artists and 1,000 distinct artistic mediums in Princeton’s newly renewed public art experience.
The Daily Princetonian analyzed trends from the art museum collections database, focusing on the 3,241 artworks currently on display out of 58,348 total in the database.
Where the data was consistently formatted, the ‘Prince’ used simple text-analysis machine learning (ML) techniques — word tokenization (breaking text into words or phrases) and clustering (grouping similar items based on shared features) — to organize the mediums and dates of works into broader categories.
The art museum opened to the public on Halloween, drawing more than 20,000 visitors over a 24-hour opening event.
Artists
The ‘Prince’ first looked at a breakdown of credited artists on display at the art museum. Any art piece in the collections database whose artist description mentioned “unknown”, “attributed”, “unrecorded”, or “unidentified” were removed for this analysis.
There are 514 credited artists with works on display, 14 of which have more than four works on display. The artist with the most works on display is Eleanor Antin, mostly as part of a project called 100 Boots, which documents the staged travels of 100 pairs of black rubber boots. The project consists of 51 postcards of the boots photographed in a cross-country journey.
The ‘Prince’ used the Bosworth Art score, a modification of the Bosworth score, to analyze how well-known artists are based on Google Trends data. The score compares an artist’s number of monthly searches to Toshiko Takaezu, former Princeton art professor and creator of “Dialogues in Clay,” the welcome exhibit to the museum.
BY THE NUMBERS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM:
Andy Warhol, Claude Monet, and Benjamin West hold the top three Bosworth Art scores, averaging roughly 84, 80, and 78 respectively for 2024. This means that each of these artists were searched about 80 times more often than Takaezu.
By this metric, seven of the fifteen
most recognizable artists are painters and four are photographers or print artists.
Mediums
The original dataset from the art museum’s collection search included 1,084 different art mediums. To make these easier to study, the ‘Prince’ used a machine learning technique called k-means clustering to group similar mediums into broader categories to analyze.
The original 1,084 medium entries were grouped into 40 broader categories, chosen using common data science methods to capture meaningful differences between mediums while keeping the categories simple enough to interpret.
More than 240 works were categorized as either “black-figure” or general ceramics. Roughly one-quarter of these originated from Greek or Classical Greek culture, many representing black-figure pieces, which are bowls and vases decorated with ornamental motifs along the sides.
Almost 99 percent of oil paintings, the second most frequently used medium, were not given a cultural label.
Cultures
There are 252 unique cultures on display at the art museum. Almost two thirds of works with labeled cultures had either East Asian, Mesoamerican, or Greek and Roman origins. 1,543 works had no culture label, usually indicating modern or contemporary art.
Image Analysis
The Museum’s dataset contained 2,384 unique images. For each, the “dominant color” was found by averaging RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values across all pixels. k-means clustering was used to group these works into eight groups, with each sharing similar color profiles.
Most of the works on display at the museum have muted color tones on average. About two thirds of all works have some shade of gray or beige as their average color — categorized into clusters representing the colors stone gray, ash brown, beige gray, and light sand. Golden tan, a smaller group of 253 works, has a yellow/gold average color, rep-
resenting many of the images of clay sculptures. The smallest group, slate blue, is a blue-gray color and contains many of the more colorful and modern works on display at the museum.
The ‘Prince’ also analyzed the relative brightness, saturation, and vibrance of works using HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) codes. This was broken down by the ten most frequent cultural clusters, identified using k-means clustering.
Most of the artistic cultural groups had similar brightness levels, with Roman works falling below the average by 5.3 percent and works in the Greek (other) category having 7.1 percent higher brightness levels than average.
Olmec art, recognized for its stone sculptures and expressive human features, shows a 36.5 percent higher saturation than average. Etruscan art, known for its terracotta sculptures and ornate pottery, has a 15.3 percent higher saturation than average. In contrast, Japanese works, Egyptian works, and Non-Attic Greek works register about 10 percent lower saturation scores, suggesting subtler or more restrained palettes.
Differences in vibrance values are more moderate, with Chinese, Roman, Japanese, Maya, Nasca, and Olmec artwork being close to average in value. Notably, Etruscan works have a vibrance value 17.5 percent higher than average, while Egyptian works have a value about 10 percent lower than average.
The reopening marks an invitation to examine only a snippet of Princeton’s collections. By the numbers, the museum’s collection is vast and complex, hailing from many time periods and regions throughout human history.
All visitors are able to visit the Princeton University Art Museum’s collection of over 3,000 works for no cost.
Vincent Etherton is a head Data editor for the ‘Prince.’
Aayush Mitra is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
MUSEUM 24 Hours in the
By Daily Princetonian Staff
In 1755, N.J. colonial governor Jonathan Belcher gifted his portrait to Princeton. It was hung in the prayer room in Nassau Hall. In 1777, the contents of the building were destroyed by fire.
Not to be deterred, the trustees began collecting art again in 1783. But a second fire in 1802 destroyed most of the collection, with Charles Willson Peale’s “George Washington at the Battle of Princeton” as one of the only surviving relics.
Shortly after, Professor John Maclean, a member of the Class of 1816, began rebuilding the collection with portraits of the University presidents — an endeavor to which he dedicated the rest of his life. Another fire raged in 1855, but this time, students and town residents were able to save the majority of the collections.
Princeton’s first museum opened in 1874 with these collections, displayed together in a dedicated space in Nassau Hall. Just 16 years later, a freestanding museum opened near Prospect House, costing just $40,000 at the start ($90,000 in total, or around $3.2 million today). This museum soon shared its space with the new School of Architecture, as well as the Department of Art and Archaeology, and expanded in 1923 to accommodate the departments.
Since then, McCormick Hall has stood in central campus, with additions and expansions being added to the complex throughout its almost 100-year tenure. The result? “A random and chaotic assemblage of additions in a host of disparate and even jarring historicizing styles,” or so predicted Professor Jean Labatut in the 1930s, as Museum Director James Steward
wrote in Renaissance: A New Museum for Princeton.
So in 2021, Princeton tore it down. After five years of construction, Steward promises that this building will be “a game changer for our campus, for our town.”
To usher in the opening, the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) held a 24-hour open house beginning at 5 p.m. on Halloween, welcoming almost 22,000 visitors. The Daily Princetonian was there the whole time, just in case a fire started.
5 p.m. — Steward opens the doors to the hundreds of people lined up outside of the building. Many are dressed in Halloween costumes, looking to party the night away surrounded by art.
5:11 p.m. — The galleries are filled with people; the lines going up and down the stairs are growing. In the Grand Hall, makeup artists are painting children’s faces.
5:31 p.m. — A family dressed as the Addams family walks past. They look incredible and are one of Senior Associate Director for Collections and Exhibitions Chris Newth’s favourite costumes so far. There are so many tiny children dressed up for Halloween as well.
5:40 p.m. — As people enter galleries, they’re asked to take off their backpacks and put them over one shoulder. People are also leaving food and drinks at the entrance of the galleries.
5:45 p.m. — I pet a golden retriever outside dressed as the cowardly lion. He is drawing a lot of attention, and he deserves it.
5:53 p.m. — The Modern and Contemporary Pavilion is popping. People like
Sonya Kelliher-Combs’s “Idiot Strings: The Things We Carry” (2017) in the middle. I’m sitting in the Hans and Donna Sternberg viewing room. I feel very calm right now.
5:59 p.m. — Right in the lobby, local resident Ashley Richardson and Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology Kai Mesa sport eye-catching Jackson Pollock-inspired costumes with splatter paint, a unique, on-theme outfit for the museum’s opening. “The energy feels high,” Richardson remarks.
6:15 p.m. — A couple talks about how they tried to come here on their first date four years ago and arrived at the early stages of construction. They’re back for a second chance. That’s commitment.
“We tried to go to the Princeton Art Museum on our first date four years ago, and it was a hole in the ground,” says Daisy Eckman, a N.J. local. “We’re making it official and coming back to see the art museum.”
6:20 p.m. — In the viewing room connected to the Modern and Contemporary art section, three townspeople critically analyze Jane Irish’s “Cosmos Beyond Atrocity” (2024). The painting is embedded in the ceiling.
“The different perspectives are being broken. It’s captivating,” says Matthew Feuer, a Princeton resident. He’s been waiting five years for the museum to reopen.
6:46 p.m. — A coven of witches is tearing up the dance floor.
6:49 p.m. — Six students dressed as Louvre robbers are giggling at the back entrance. Did they steal the crown jewels of the Princeton University Art Museum?
7 p.m. — A costume contest begins, inviting patrons to dress up as one of 15
objects on display in the museum. Over 30 contestants competing across two age brackets demonstrated their costumes to hundreds of onlookers over the course of an hour in the Grand Hall.
7:14 p.m. — A baby comes dressed as Viktor Schreckengost’s Jazz Bowl.
7:18 p.m. — “No contestant will be disqualified for declining to wear their costume,” says Steward, in regards to another baby contestant protesting wearing her costume.
7:46 p.m. — “The costume contest was [created] because there was so much creativity that sort of came out during those dark [COVID] times, so people tried to reimagine their favorite works of art translated into something they could wear,” Steward says.
The first-place winners in the adult category are Teddy Knox GS and his friend Tess Teodoro, who portrayed Leonora Carrington’s “Twins.”
“I planned my semester around this, frankly,” Teodoro says.
“We felt this [painting] was a natural fit because we knew we wanted to do a costume together, and there were two figures in it,” Knox says. “The more we looked into it, the more we got excited by the painting and the story of the artist.”
Their costumes included hand-painted renditions of the twins’ faces, which were stretched across frames fashioned from old baby wipe boxes.
8:05 p.m. — “I am really impressed with how large the second floor is because it holds so much art up there,” says Christina Li ’26.
8:40 p.m. — There’s a woman carrying a dog who’s dressed as an avocado.
Friday November 14, 2025
8:42 p.m. — There are a lot of groups of crayons — apparently there are 40 of them? They’re all walking around in small groups of three to four. They say a short green crayon organized all of this, but we can’t find her.
8:49 p.m. — There’s a group of children sitting on the floor outside the restaurant, going through their buckets of candy, looking bored out of their minds. I wish I were trick-or-treating.
8:51 p.m. — Alyia Frisby, a student at the College of New Jersey, thought that the decision to host the 24-hour open house over Halloween was “the best idea they could have had.”
8:58 p.m. — The elevator is out of order. I walk past on the second floor. There are around six people in wheelchairs or with strollers waiting for the elevator to work again. Visitors are waiting in line to go up or down the stairs.
9:05 p.m. — Tavia Whitney ’93, who was in town for her son’s soccer senior weekend, describes the transformation from the old museum as “mind-boggling.”
“We’ve been coming to visit for so many years and seeing it under construction,” she says. “So far, I’m just blown away.”
9:28 p.m. — Students standing outside of the restaurant on the top floor of the museum are surprised to see that the mocktails are not free and actually cost $9.
9:48 p.m. — “A lot of people tonight?” I ask the Public Safety (PSafe) officer posted at the bottom of the staircase. “Oh, only about five or six thousand,” he jokes. He sounds giddy.
9:59 p.m. — I am dressed up as Snoopy in line for drinks at Mosaic Restaurant — where I have no intention of actually buying the $9 mocktail — and I shake hands with another Snoopy. “Nice to meet you, Snoopy,” we say to each other. His costume is definitely better thought-out than mine; plus, he has Woodstock to go along with him, and I’m currently solo.
10:09 p.m. — Many people at the art museum are dressed as Louvre thieves. Two of them have been going around pretending to steal art, taking selfies with paintings, and positioning themselves as if about to steal them, arms outstretched toward the artwork.
10:21 p.m. — I almost crash into a Piet Mondrian painting — oh wait, that’s a man wearing a jacket with the iconic red, blue, and yellow composition.
10:43 p.m. — Halfway up the staircase to the second floor, I find Camryn Phil-
lips GS, who leans on the railing, quietly sketching the capital and shaft of a column. She’d helped out with Sky Gazing an hour earlier, seeing Saturn and the moon. Phillips, who grew up around DC, spent lots of time sketching in the National Art Gallery and other museums. “I was very friendly with the guards at the Smithsonian,” she says.
“I [thought] I should do this for old times’ sake,” she adds. “I don’t get to do it very much these days.”
10:54 p.m. — A young woman walks by, clad in a black dress with flames of red, gold, and yellow spiraling up at the hems and a wooden pole at her back.
11:09 p.m. — Although the disco is “silent” and everyone has rainbow-colored headphones on, the crowd synchronizes perfectly with their a cappella version of “Mr. Brightside.”
11:22 p.m. — As I walk around the second floor, a group of four girls dressed as Disney princesses asks me to take photos of them.
11:59 p.m. — I’ve counted seven different people wearing tiger costumes.
Midnight — The silent disco has come to an end. Everyone is slowly filing out of the grand hall, many heading upstairs to the galleries. The Toshiko Takaezu exhibition is buzzing, but the demographic has changed in the last two hours. The average age has approximately halved, but some fluctuation is expected as students head out and other folks head to bed. This is the first time tonight where the only event is dreaming and drawing. Late-night trivia starts in 90 minutes.
Stephen Kim, Associate Director for Communication & Information, and Newth are standing strong. Newth is here for another five hours. It’s crazy quiet here now compared to earlier.
12:19 a.m. — Someone is dressed as the Oval with Two Points (the statue that serves as the logo of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students). Hats off to them.
12:30 a.m. — It’s calm. Loads of people have left in the last few minutes.
12:50 a.m. — Students seem to be coming in in groups. This is earlier than I expected party-goers to arrive.
1:20 a.m. — I find Hannah Riggins ’27 and Olivia Martin ’27 on a bench in a corner. They say they came here tonight for “introspective conversation, a way to escape from the chaos of the Street.”
“We were trying to force the night, and it just didn’t pan out,” Riggins says.
“The environment wasn’t conducive to
reflection,” Martin adds.
1:30 a.m. — “I actually was able to take a tour of the building while in construction,” Houston Landis says. Landis wasn’t involved in the construction of the museum, but he does a lot of construction work for the University.
1:35 a.m. — Despite the massive night out on Prospect Avenue, no major incidents with drunk students seem to have occurred so far.
“I was a bit worried, because I was like, ‘everyone’s just going to come straight from the Street.’ But we’re all very respectful,” says Iman Bedru ’28. “Seeing everyone in their costumes is kind of funny, the contrast between us all [coming] from the Street and then looking at the art, but everyone seems to be appreciating it, and it seems great.”
1:55 a.m. — I would’ve been three for 29 at trivia.
2:02 a.m. — There is a copious number of drunk individuals making their way up the stairs. “You need a little suspense. You’re looking at the art, and it’s like: oh, what if this guy knocks it over? It adds to it,” says Andrew Li ’29.
2:18 a.m. — Three people prance around the museum’s second floor. William Suringa ’26 carries a camera, filming energetically, as David Kwon ’26 and Allison Rodrigues ’26 narrate.
“In 30 years, when we come back to Princeton … we’ll see the footage of when we were 21 years old,” Rodrigues says. “I hope we’re all still friends then. I think we will be.”
2:37 a.m. — Late-night trivia winners are announced in the Grand Hall to a muted but substantial audience. The firstplace team, “Trivia Crackheads,” tells me they compete together in the weekly Rockefeller College trivia.
2:44 a.m. — The screening of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” finishes in Tuttle Lecture Hall. The room is nearly full.
2:50 a.m. — Five people remain until the end of the credits. Shin Cheng, a local resident, responds when asked why she’s at the museum so late: “A night at the museum, right?” I see her again at 3:53 a.m.
3 a.m. — I’ve spent the last two hours working in the Loevner Artwalk. Would recommend. I now return upstairs to almost empty pavilions. Those remaining are primarily students, although there are some older folk. At 3 a.m., I cannot explain why.
3:14 a.m. — A group of five people in costumes gasp when they see Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Notary” (1983). One comes
within a fraction of a centimeter of Morris Louis’s “Intrigue” (1954). A friend warns: “Watch out, watch out.”
3:20 a.m. — There are still many people in the museum, despite the late hour. My knees are sore.
3:33 a.m. — Many drunk people are stumbling around. The modern gallery is basically empty except for three people.
3:37 a.m. — Some of the PSafe officers also seem to be going mad. One just saw me in the viewing room and went “Oh, hey,” then walked away going, “Weee weee.” Never have I ever spent a night in a museum before. There’s a first time for everything.
3:41 a.m. — Carin Companick, a middle-aged local resident, strolls around. She says, “I’m a serious night owl, and I didn’t know when I’d have an opportunity to browse around galleries at 3:41 in the morning.”
3:51 a.m. — In the Grand Hall, three students have fallen asleep on the couches. The room is mostly empty, but nearby, a man reads the art museum magazine.
3:57 a.m. — Most rooms now have no or only a few people in them, but people, many dressed in costumes, continue to roam.
4:12 a.m. — There are few people walking around each upstairs gallery. There is an almost library-like quietness to it.
4:28 a.m. — Three of the trivia winners are still here in costume.
“It’s Halloween night. Everyone’s pretending to be something they’re not, but art evokes. Art evokes the feeling of connection with the subliminal that one may not always find in a typical setting,” says Alejandra Ramos ’27, one of the winners.
4:28 a.m. — I find Chris Newth again. He has been awake for 24 hours and at the open house for nearly 12. His favourite costumes of the night include contestants in the costume contest representing Leonora Carrington’s “Twins” (1997) and a family dressed up as Cruella de Vil with two dogs — one man and one baby dressed in Dalmatian onesies.
“It’s now 4:30, and we’ve never been empty,” Newth says. “It was fun just to people watch and see them interact with the activities and the art and each other.”
4:33 a.m. — Harry Toung ’78 has been here the whole time. “I’m just gonna stay as long as I can stay,” he says. He is an architect here to “witness the coming to life of this building.” Some of his friends will
join him later in the day.
4:58 a.m. — The first of the early risers has arrived.
“I just wanted to check it out before everyone comes in. I’m kind of surprised that it’s not busy,” says Jacqueline Yang GS, a first-year Ph.D. candidate in the Art and Archeology department.
5:18 a.m. — People have started filing back in again slowly. I think these people have probably slept. Happy for them. A couple people remain in their Halloween costumes. They have not slept.
5:35 a.m. — Workers from facilities are attempting to clean the art walks.
5:42 a.m. — I’m starting to see a few new faces, including a family with two young children.
5:59 a.m. — Marco Wheeler ’29 and Corbin Mortimer ’27 say they have already been here for three to four hours. They came with a group of friends after a Halloween party, but now it is just the two of them in the “serene and peaceful, very quiet” museum, as Wheeler said. They’ve been going back to the modern and contemporary pavilion and the Pacific Northwest Indigenous art.
Wheeler is a contributing Copy editor for the ‘Prince’; Mortimer is an associate Newsletter editor.
6:00 a.m. — The Art Museum is awake and noisy, deceivingly so in the sleepy early morning. Behind the information desk, two women discuss trick-or-treating. Museumgoer couples descend the grand staircase. A student stands a bit too close to a Frank Stella oil painting. Even laughter from two PSafe officers reverberates in the open, well-lit space.
6:08 a.m. — I come across Marilyn Simeone, who was a program manager in the University’s Campus Interiors in Facilities, and local resident Anne Wright Wilson craning their necks up at a fragment of a limestone stairway in the entrance hall. They’ve been in the Museum since 5:08 a.m. “We wanted to come to see [the museum] when it was open before it became public,” Simeone says. “It’s nice when it’s quiet.”
6:10 a.m. — Just had a lovely chat with Rutgers professor Anita Franzione. She woke up at 4 a.m. for her usual run, then decided to visit the art museum. She wanted “to be here at night, [at] a time that is abnormal to see art.”
“I’ve been coming to the Princeton museum with my children since forever,” Franzione says. “[It’s] a little overwhelming compared to what it was … but I think it’s
just amazing.”
6:11 a.m. — A young PSafe officer on the second floor of the Orientation Gallery squats down, relieving his fatigued legs from standing for too long.
6:19 a.m. — There’s one last remaining group of students here from their night out.
6:44 a.m. — The sky is a blend of deep purples and blues. The South Terrace view, overlooking the lawn of Prospect House, features a group of runners clad in black athleisure, stretching and warming their muscles.
7:15 a.m. — It turns out that there is no ideal position in the art museum from which to view the sunrise. This feels like an oversight. But standing on the east terrace and gazing in the direction of Prospect House, one can at least see the sky gradually lighten.
7:23 a.m. — It turns out that the Stacey
& Robert George viewing room is the best room from which to view the sunrise. The sun sends orange shafts into the room. Still, the blinds close automatically at 7:27 a.m., so the viewing-window was brief.
7:42 a.m. — In the Creativity Labs, a few parents and their children browse the collection of possible mediums. They appear to debate between markers and crayons.
7:50 a.m. — Courtney Matlock, who works in development on the fundraising side, says that the team has expanded over the last two years, and most of the heavy lifting for fundraising is behind them, as the art museum is completed. Now, Matlock’s goal is to diversify.
“Every nonprofit needs to diversify supporters,” she explains. “It’s a teaching museum, so letting the community know that it is open to them and that it is a free
museum is a really intentional draw.” Matlock’s favorite piece so far is the Nick Cave “Let me kindly introduce myself. They call me MC Prince Brighton,” (2025). She saw the artist the previous night. “I don’t get star struck, but I was star struck,” she says.
8 a.m. — Yoga time! Around 19 people, mostly on the older side, sprawl out on yoga mats on the side of the museum that faces Prospect House. The practice is led by Debbi Gitterman, a spritely woman clad in black athleticware. “Thank you to the brave souls who thought yoga at 8 a.m. in 40 degree weather was a good idea,” she says.
8:23 a.m. — Gitterman urges us not to be too concerned with the perfection of the shapes our bodies make. “What you do is correct. What you feel is correct. You’re already perfect,” she assures us. Which is exactly what I need to hear when I fall out of my downward dog.
8:43 a.m. — Gitterman instructs us to
add a delightful hop in our routine: “When do we get to skip these days?” She reiterates that it’s entirely up to us if we do, although everyone follows suit. The air fills with the sound of shoes lightly bouncing on silicon mats.
9 a.m. — Workers pull back a metal curtain to open up the Museum Store. People mill about and examine wooden wands, intricate spoons, and very tempting notebooks.
9:05 a.m. — The meditation session is full! I ask if I can enter just to observe, but the guards at the door tell me that they have been working to “create an atmosphere of complete silence” for the last 35 minutes, so I cannot enter.
9:41 a.m. — The Mosaic workers, circled up with notepads, are having a morning meeting. Someone wanders into the
restaurant anyway, just to check it out. His companion calls him back, pointing to the window across from Mosaic and exclaiming, “Get out of there, you can see the Nick Cave from up here, look!”
9:44 a.m. — If I can’t get into the meditation session itself, I might as well spy on it from the Art of the Ancient Americas pavilion above. I look down to discover 120 people peacefully seated in concentric circles, with musicians playing live music in the middle.
9:49 a.m. — I catch a woman named Mimi Deitsch on her way out from meditation. “Sorry, I’m still a bit zenned out,” she says. She’s done this before in Richardson and really enjoys it. “With the music in the middle, it’s something magical,” she explains. “It brought tears to my eyes.”
10:11 a.m. — “It’s so many people!” remarks a woman walking down the stairs to the first floor. She’s correct, but there’s a particularly noticeable population of families with small children. Everywhere you look, there’s a double stroller.
10:27 a.m. — Mosaic is nearly at capacity, with couples and friends ready to brunch.
10:30 a.m. — Bernard Miller, from the Princeton area, is here in a kilt.
“It was just a perfect day, not too hot, not too cold. So I thought I’d just wear my kilt,” he says.
10:52 a.m. — Just outside the Modern and Contemporary Art pavilion, longtime Princeton resident Ellen Roffis says she and her husband have been counting down the days until the museum’s opening, but they decided to wait a few extra hours before taking their visit.
“We knew it would be open all night, but we’re too old for that,” Roffis says.
11:01 a.m. — The lobby is buzzing with activity as parents, children, older couples, and students make their way towards the Grand Hall and upward towards the several pavilions.
11:07 a.m. — On the second floor, it seems nearly every painting is swarmed by someone gazing and thoughtfully reading the works’ inscriptions.
11:12 a.m. — At “Storytime at the Galleries,” an older museum worker dressed in a blazer reads to a room full of children. The children watch intently as the woman interacts with her audience. She asks them brightly: “Do you know what a compliment is?” before inviting every child to give someone else a compliment.
11:47 a.m. — Passing priceless Roman artifacts, I hear a father pleadingly remind
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN A couple dance at the Silent Disco.
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN A student looks at a portrait bust.
Friday November 14, 2025 his child, “We’re just looking, honey … we’re just looking.”
12:01 p.m. — Members of the Westrick Boychoir Young Men’s Ensemble and Girlchoir Ensemble start singing in Tuttle Lecture Hall, which is filled to the brim. Many audience members are left standing to the sides of the room, and about a dozen more are listening in from outside.
12:25 p.m. — Several children are still dressed in Halloween costumes; as I listen in on the choir in Tuttle Hall, I spot a cat costume and a wailing child in a police outfit.
12:32 p.m. — Sabrina Yeung ’26 brought her mother, Mei, who is visiting for the weekend, to visit the new museum. “It reminds me of the Met,” she says, and her mother, who visited the pre-construction museum, agreed.
“This is huge in comparison with the old one,” Mei says. They’ve only seen a couple of galleries so far and are particularly excited to see Monet’s “Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge.”
12:33 p.m. — Next to the Tuttle Lecture Hall, the museum’s newest art-making spaces are bustling with children cutting colored paper for a suncatcher activity led by Estefany Rodriguez-Morrison, the supervisor for the Creativity Labs.
“This space is really about finding like-minded people, combating loneliness, mental health, and discovering your inner child,” Rodriguez-Morrison, who has been supervising the labs since 9 a.m., tells me. “This is a place for all ages, and we will have programming for K–12.”
12:58 p.m. — Over 250 people sit in the Grand Hall awaiting “The Art of a Song: A Broadway Cabaret,” which features Tony-nominated singer and actress Kate Baldwin and lecturer Georgia Stitt. The glass walls of the hall give me a glimpse of the Greek vases on the second floor.
1:03 p.m. — Steward takes the stage, revealing that the museum attracted 16,638
visitors as of noon.
“We began brainstorming about the kinds of performances and programs that could work best in our new spaces, and the kinds of talent we would want to platform. The incredible duo we’re about to hear was top of the list for us,” he tells the audience.
1:07 p.m. — The show kicks off. “Art is something that you do, something that you make, something you can show to the world,” Baldwin sings. Stitt accompanies her on piano, and the duo play through a set of songs related to art-making and the creative process.
1:21 p.m. — Stitt offers the audience a taste of her upcoming album, parts of which were inspired by “Poetry in Motion” printed on the New York City Transit subways. The audience laughs along as Stitt and Baldwin sing about bee killers, hunger, and romantic betrayal.
1:58 p.m. — The performance is greeted by a standing ovation. “It seemed like everybody was really engaged in the performance,” Anna Villegas, the Presented Programming Manager at McCarter Theatre Center, says. “The performers did such an amazing job relating their subject matter and their song choices to the art museum and the creative process.”
2 p.m. — At the Jhumpa Lahiri reading in Tuttle Lecture Hall, people filter in. The crowd is overwhelmingly skewed older. The event wasn’t explicitly advertised to students, and many students told me afterward they would’ve loved to come if they had known about it.
2:08 p.m. — In the wait line, I speak with Barry Wechsler ’73, the former photography chair of the ‘Prince,’ and his wife, Carol Yoshimine, Professor of Fine Arts emerita at Centenary University.
“As soon as I saw [an email about the event], I went on to try to register for Jhumpa Lahiri,” Wechsler says. “It was already sold out. Like, within the first few hours — may have even been the first few
minutes.”
2:14 p.m. — Lahiri begins speaking. She describes how important the old art museum was to her when she taught at Princeton. “It was really my point of reference, refuge,” she says. “I just found it always to be the most comforting and welcoming place.”
2:35 p.m. — Lahiri moves on to reading previously unheard passages from her forthcoming translation of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” co-written with Princeton Classics professor Yelena Baraz. She says this is her first time presenting the work, and is visibly working out the flow of the lines as she goes.
3:10 p.m. — A crowd gathers in the Conservation Studios, with people reaching over the group to photograph the equipment and hear from the chief conservator, as will happen every month.
3:15 p.m. — A group gathered around all sides of “Idiot Strings” discusses the rig supporting the art, interested in the mechanics of the display.
3:26 p.m. — In the gallery with the Monet, PSafe seems more on alert, instructing onlookers to cease leaning on tables and to place backpacks on one shoulder or in front of them — including me!.
3:32 p.m. — To exit to the sculpture garden on the east terrace, almost everyone seems to comment on the difficulty of opening the doors.
4 p.m. — This is the final hour. Crowds remain throughout the museum — a mix of students, alumni, and townspeople. The Grand Hall is closed for “The Art of the Moth: A Storytelling Salon.”
4:30 p.m. — It’s still busier than I expected. The museum store is popping, and people seem to be flooding down the stairs.
4:36 p.m. — I overhear a conversation between a couple of students talking about writing their senior theses and how the piece “America” by Hugh Hayden could be
used as an example of the perversion of the American Dream.
4:45 p.m. — A bell rings; “The galleries will be closing in 15 minutes.”
When I come back down to the ground floor, I speak to Irene Osted, an artist in Princeton. She appreciates the integration of art into the design of the museum.
“I think this idea is unique with having you walk on the ancient tiles over glass, like they did in those days,” Osted says.
4:46 p.m. — I find Steward again. He’s been here for over 14 hours of the open house.
“It’s just so heartwarming to see that people have wanted to be part of this,” Steward says. He was here at 1:30 a.m. introducing a movie and was delighted to see so many people still at the museum at that time.
“Whether you’re a student living in the dorm next door, or someone living in the next county, [I hope] that we become a place that you can seek out when you want to be inspired or reminded that life can be okay,” Steward concludes.
4:58 p.m. — The Moth event finishes. The Grand Hall empties. David Hassett and Catherine Talton found the storytelling “very natural” and “incredibly relatable.”
5 p.m. — That is it. 24 hours in the art museum are over. The bell rings and the galleries close. “Please make your way immediately towards the first floor exits.”
Reporting by Andrew Bosworth, Sena Chang, Victoria Davies, Lucas Escobar, Raphi Gold, Coco Gong, Michael Grasso, Luke Grippo, Leela Hensler, Mackenzie Hollingsworth, Ben Hooper, Lola Horowitz, Elizabeth Hu, Melinda Huang, Vitus Larrieu, Haeon Lee, Lulu Mangriotis, Gavin McLoughlin, Devon Rudolph, Nika Schindler, Cynthia Torres, Ambre van de Velde, Christine Wood, Oliver Wu, Grace Zhao, and Lucy Zschoche
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A time lapse taken at the art museum.
How the new art museum confronts its ‘problematic’ past
By Nikki Han assistant news editor
Before its demolition in 2021, Director of the Princeton University Art Museum James Steward called the museum’s layout “problematic” during a 2020 online presentation.
European, American, and contemporary art dominated the main floor galleries, while non-Western art was relegated to the downstairs galleries. According to Steward’s new book “Renaissance: A New Museum for Princeton,” around 40 percent of visitors to the art museum never went downstairs.
“It definitely imposed a sense of hierarchy,” Michael Zhang GS ’25, who recently completed a Ph.D. in African Art, told The Daily Princetonian. “You felt this sense of grandeur when you walked in, and then you finished walking through the galleries on the first floor, and you had to go down to the basement where the African art and Asian art collection was.”
“People had to go downstairs, and it felt like a basement,” Senior Associate Director for Collections and Exhibitions Chris Newth said earlier this semester during an early tour of the museum.
The newly renovated museum tackles the problem of Eurocentricity head on, with an open layout to encourage visitor circulation between seven art pavilions, intentional juxtaposition of geographically and temporally disparate artworks, and placing artwork in the context it was first made to be viewed.
But with the noticeable lack of a pavilion dedicated to African Art and uncertain provenance still haunting many non-Western pieces, questions remain over whether the new museum has been successful in its mission to “challeng[e] the traditional hierarchies inherent in multilevel gallery display.”
The old art museum
When the old art museum was
initially constructed in 1966, the gradual nature of its expansion produced a building which had hierarchy inscribed onto its very structure.
It was only after renovations between 1986 and 1989 that the museum even installed a permanent African gallery in its lower level. According to a 1989 article in the ‘Prince,’ the art museum’s newly expanded lower galleries housed “collections of African, Far Eastern, Ancient and pre-Columbian art,” with “findings culled from Princeton University-sponsored archaeological digs in the Mediterranean and elsewhere.”
Following the 1989 expansion, the art museum reopened in phases, with the lower floors and thus the non-Western art “tak[ing] more time to organize,” according to then-Director Allen Rosenbaum.
The old museum, especially its non-Western galleries, faced what Steward described in his book as “the challenge of ‘threshold resistance,’” the idea that a visitor’s lack of preexisting knowledge or experience might make them feel uninvited and unwelcomed.
“It just seemed like [non-Western art] was an afterthought,” Zhang said.
The new museum promises to overcome this, with 95 percent of the galleries on the same level.
A non-hierarchical layout
In the new art museum, 31 out of the 32 galleries are housed on the second floor, which arranges separate pavilions and interstitial galleries in a cyclical design. The only gallery on the first floor houses temporary exhibitions.
While pavilions largely separate the art geographically, the new museum’s layout encourages movement across the museum. Art is displayed in all the transition spaces, creating a sense of fluidity, and walls that separate galleries within pavilions do not reach all the way to the ceiling, creating a sense of openness.
In a statement to the ‘Prince,’
Asian Art curator Zoe S. Kwok described how the Asian pavilion is “prominently positioned” near the Grand Stair, and “as such, many visitors will pass the Asian art pavilion.”
“You are naturally drawn into non-Western areas, right off the bat,” Breton Langendorfer, Art & Archaeology Lecturer specializing in the ancient Middle East, told the ‘Prince.’
“I think that the team have found incredible solutions in the beautifully fluid gallery spaces that reflect both difference and interconnectivity in space,” Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History Rachel Saunders wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
Still, the new art museum does not have a dedicated African art pavilion. African art is largely displayed in interstitial galleries, which a visitor encounters on the way to the Temporary Exhibitions pavilion on the second floor, currently displaying “Princeton Collects.”
Newth said that the floor space dedicated to African art galleries increased by around 700 percent from the previous building. The curation was overseen by Perrin Lathrop GS ’21, who joined the art museum as its first permanent African art curator in 2022.
While some have argued that the museum relegates African art to hallways, the art museum maintains that all gallery spaces are functionally similar, whether they are contained within a pavilion or not.
“We see no fundamental distinction between the character of our galleries and don’t see any spaces in the building as ‘hallways,’” Museum Spokesperson Morgan Gengo wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
Others agree. “It felt to me like works by African artists are not just integrated, but really integral to the organization of the museum,” Associate Professor of African American and Black Diasporic Art Anna Arabindan-Kesson added, but noted that she had only briefly visited the
museum since its opening. Arabindan-Kesson suggested “maybe some of those interstitial spaces are also ways to start to build those cross-historical and also aesthetic connections.”
Zhang, however, argued that the lack of an African art pavilion suggests that the art “is not receiving the same priority from the art museum as some of the other fields” while acknowledging there is not “necessarily a need to silo it in one pavilion.”
Juxtapositions
The new museum has positioned artworks to juxtapose their geographical, cultural, and temporal backgrounds.
The European art pavilion, for example, contains a sculpture of “Saint Peter Martyr” (late 16th–early 17th century) from Mexico, which was originally thought to be Spanish and accordingly placed in the European collection, but recent research determined it was actually Mexican.
“It shows the transitory nature of artists,” Newth said.
The Orientation Gallery draws attention to the colonial legacy of historical figures like George Washington and former Princeton President Samuel Finley who were slaveowners, as well as the centrality of colonialism to the acquisition of pieces like a “Nkisi” from the early 20th century.
Charles Wilson Peale’s replica portrait of Washington (1787) is placed next to Titus Kaphar’s “To Be Sold” (2018), depicting Finley with sale bills nailed onto his body to represent his ownership of enslaved people. Adjacent is the “Nkisi,” attributed to an unrecorded artist from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“The Orientation Gallery at the outset is really successful in putting forward these difficult questions that museums are grappling with right now — questions of provenance, questions of histories of colo-
nialism, and a certain kind of Western chauvinism,” Langendorfer said.
Arabindan-Kesson points to the American art pavilion as another example of this. On display in the pavilion are casta paintings, originally from colonial Mexico, which are “in conversation with works that would have come from the US,” Arabindan-Kesson explained.
“Thinking about how these histories of colonial conquest and genocide and histories of race also become part of the aesthetic values that we understand to be art or art history is important,” Arabindan-Kesson added. “So I think those are really significant interventions.”
Although the art museum makes these overt contrasts in time and place, art within pavilions is, for the most part, geographically self-contained. For Associate Professor of Japanese Literature Brian Steininger, this allows the museum to maintain its educational mission.
“They’ve had to strike a balance between this teaching museum objective, which tends to reinforce traditional categories,” Steininger explained. “But I think that there’s also a lot of places … where the museum clearly is trying to find areas to allow for those kinds of unexpected juxtapositions.”
Using the Asian art pavilion as an example, Steininger still praised the pavilions for being able to illuminate the “interconnecting threads that lead between cultures within East Asia and then out to South Asia.”
New approaches to installation
Art museums in the West have faced criticism for their displays of non-Western pieces originally created for different, often non-public, purposes.
“Art from East Asia is often created for very different display contexts, contexts that are occasional, temporary, and largely private, so situating them comfortably and sensitively within the architecture of a 21st century public building in North America is also a huge challenge,” Saunders wrote.
The new art museum attempts to address these problems of display,
within certain practical limits. A Guanyin sculpture, for example, is elevated to the height at which it would have been originally viewed.
“We tried to display [the Guanyin] in the way that it was meant to be experienced in its original context,” Newth said, adding that “we can’t do that with everything, but there are moments when we can.”
Steininger also gave the example of darkly lit Buddhist sculptures “which then end up kind of looming at you out of the darkness, which is how you would encounter them in a temple.”
“The efforts the team have gone to in the creation of individualized and object-specific installation — some of it quite daring in the parlance of conventional museum practice in the US — is remarkable, and truly centers the objects to best advantage,” Saunders wrote.
Grappling with provenance
The museum has also moved in recent years to more vigorously address provenance, the often-fraught history of an object’s ownership beginning from its creation up until the present day.
Although the art museum actively conducts provenance research, it can be difficult to determine the provenance of many pieces, especially those which were acquired decades or centuries ago. According to its website, objects are frequently bought and sold anonymously, past owners may have died, dealers sometimes do not disclose their sources, and records of dealers and auction houses can be incomplete.
Consequently, works by unrecorded or unidentified artists commonly appear in the museum, particularly within non-Western art galleries.
For artists whose names are unknown, labels designate them as “Artist unrecorded” which “serves as a corrective to the ways that the international circulation of their work, especially during the colonial era, erased their individuality,” according to Lathrop, given that the work was collected without the name of the maker.
Langendorfer noted that, at least in his field of study, the ancient Mid-
dle East, “it is historically common for specific artists or makers of objects to actually not be celebrated necessarily as individuals.”
Moreover, on all the labels, the artwork’s provenance is placed directly under the artist’s name and the work’s title. For Langendorfer, highlighting provenance in this way is an effective way to “present this material ethically. Anything less would be an abdication of the obligations of having a collection like this, or the responsibilities of having a collection like this.”
Zhang argued that the work is not yet done. “It’s work that can’t be done in a vacuum,” he said. “It really necessitates larger dialogue and partnership and transparency.”
Last year, the art museum appointed its first-ever provenance curator, MaryKate Cleary.
In the last 20 years, Princeton has worked on repatriation efforts in addition to provenance research. This includes the return of eight looted objects to Italy in 2007 as well as ten artifacts being returned to Italy in 2023, six of which were loaned to PUAM by Edoardo Almagià ’73, an art dealer who was charged last year for allegedly looting Italian antiquities after decades of investigation.
The art museum has continuous-
ly been involved in conversations around repatriation that are “ongoing,” Arabindan-Kesson said. Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, for example, the museum has been “working with Indigenous communities,” she said.
As a general principle, according to the art museum’s website, “the Museum seeks to meet and surpass both the requirements imposed by law and by cultural conventions and those required or requested by the museum field.”
In both provenance and the arrangement of its collections, the new art museum has attempted to rectify the equity issues of its predecessor, although lingering concerns remain.
“The visitor is strongly encouraged to move from place to place, from time to time, and to make connections between objects from radically different times and places, to see all that material holistically, to see it all as part of humanistic expression,” Langendorfer said.
Nikki Han is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A hallway on the main floor of the Princeton University Art Museum.
The art museum promised a revolutionary layout. Why didn’t the space deliver?
Robert Mohan & Madison Anderson
Guest Contributors
When it opened on Friday, Oct. 31, the Princeton University Art Museum became one of the largest collegiate museums in the United States, enclosing an astounding 146,000 square feet. On architectural and curatorial terms, however, the use of that massive space is far from optimal.
We find a few areas to be responsible for the disparity between actual and apparent square footage at the museum. Architecturally, the first floor is full of disappointing redundancies. On the second floor, the distribution of galleries exposes a number of oversights in the curatorial program, relegating art produced in the global south to corridors and “in-between” spaces. The nail in the coffin? None of it is labelled.
The Grand Hall is an architectural feat, providing a triple-height “town square” for
the museum. However, the double-height atrium directly next to it (with an embedded mosaic underneath) fulfills the same role, only it is grossly overshadowed by its competitor. To be triply certain, there is a third reception area: the vast foyer surrounding the oversized Grand Stair. These redundancies add up, guzzling thousands of square feet of interior space. While most museums are plagued by a lack of square footage, ours is spoiled for it, but sets aside cavernous areas for occasional use.
At the same time, crucial functions are squeezed for space. Just two seminar rooms for the Department of Art and Archaeology are almost certain to fall short, even with six object study rooms, as all are shared with the museum. The auditorium seats just 70, and could have been built where the “amphitheater” (a lawn, really) presently stands. Plus, an auditorium of 150 would mitigate the problem of closing the Grand Hall for department lectures. Haskell Education Center, conceived with
rich potential to combine department, library, and museum, ended up as a glorified hallway, with no substantive student commons.
Moving above the compromised allocation of educational space on the first floor, we see a gallery layout that is best described as contradictory. Art Museum Director James Steward has repeatedly claimed that consolidating the collections on one level “overcomes traditional hierarchies of display.” To set out for a non-hierarchical museum is a tantalizing fool’s errand — every museum, regardless of its spatial layout, is deeply hierarchical. Our museum’s intertwined histories with Princeton “expeditions” is a key example of our embedded colonial “hierarchies.” This is not to be cynical, but rather to say: Hierarchies cannot be escaped, and the present layout has plenty on display.
To give Steward his due, the promise of displaying most art on one level is fulfilled, but why would a vertical axis be the only means of articulating spatial supe -
riority? As visitors roam through the primary exhibition level, they encounter clear demarcations between three tiers of regions: those thought to merit their own enclosed, sanctified “pavilions,” those given smaller, walled rooms, and finally, those cast helplessly into the fissures in between.
Regionally speaking, standalone pavilions are bestowed upon European Art, Asian Art, and American Art. These double-height bravura spaces are the “gold standard” in museum design — their opulent dimensions, solar-tubed and artificial diffused lighting, and deep jewel-tone palettes all testify to it. In fact, these pavilions may very well be among the best rooms to house art on any American university campus. If only three regional collections receive this treatment, though, what do the others get?
The next rung consists of what we call “rooms.” These spaces are still remarkably designed, with the same eight-figure Studio Joseph casework and exceptional
object lighting found elsewhere. Operating on a diminished scale, however, these rooms are closer to human height, and are about two-thirds the square footage of a standalone pavilion. The museum calls these rooms “pavilions,” too, but architecturally, a “pavilion” is a detached volume. Ancient Mediterranean Art and Art of the Ancient Americas, simply walled spaces, are rooms.
The lowest rung exposes the most spatially literalized concepts of inferiority on the site. This tier includes the cultures without any demarcated place at all: South Asia, Latin America, the Islamic World, and Africa. These geographies — unapologetically cast out from the grandeur of the pavilions, and not deemed worthy of a walled room — sit instead in the hallways.
South Asia occupies a space scarcely six feet wide, crammed between an interior wall and the glass of that surplus atrium. Latin America is quite literally a corner outside the American pavilion. Africa is given the most disheartening treatment among these, occupying the unorganized space at the end of an arterial corridor. African objects float in this afterthought of a gallery space, estranged from any spatial anchor. It is not a destination to linger in, but a transit zone between other regions. Princ -
eton’s over eight hundred pieces of African art (most in storage, with a precious few in this hallway) deserve better.
While the gallery titles on the museum’s map reflect regionality, the physical signage in the museum conveys only the names of donors. This hands-off approach to wayfinding is baffling for a museum of this size. With so many galleries, some at intersections and in hallways, wall text is crucial to loudly introduce each space. Without it, cultures are not only spatially disenfranchised, but outright disappear.
Thankfully, the utter lack of signage could be remedied. First, regional nomenclature could be added outside each gallery. Without it, the museum precludes the viewer from an intentional approach. Secondly, ample wall space exists near the entrances of each gallery, an ideal place to add orienting text. These blank, nondescript walls give the museum a deserted feel. Larger works of art are swallowed by even larger sections of bare walls, as if the space was decorated, rather than curated. In other instances, works are hidden in drawers or crammed haplessly into vitrines surrounding the Grand Hall. The result is an erratic visual rhythm — blank expanses beside crowded displays. Despite more displayed art and a tripled floor
area, the galleries toggle between underfilled and cluttered.
Yet the museum’s curators are quick to assure that these choices are radical strategies for promoting intellectual cross-pollination. In a recent interview, Steward held that a more undefined, unlabeled program would “bring out ideas of cultural exchange and encounter across geographies and chronologies.” We aren’t convinced.
If we assume an intuitive geographic flow, what could justify the movement from South Asian into Native North American and Alaskan Art? The indiscernible calculus of this arrangement, combined with the total lack of signage, impoverishes the regions relegated to hallways. They become a collective “other,” the filler-space between civilizations.
The denial of demarcated space for specific geographies is hardly a transgressive act. When we look at the scattered display of African Art across its corridor, and then compare it with the lavish, commanding pavilion that houses European Art, we cannot help but ask: Why does one continent deserve permanence in this museum? Why does one continent deserve that special kind of “slowness” which only a closed, walled space can provide? The answer is an unfortunate one: Africa and its peers serve purely a didactic
purpose, as counterpoints to the favored geographies of Europe and America. That is what the spatial program proclaims.
Even if the hallways had the same square footage as the pavilions, these cannot realistically be held as equal to the pavilions to which they lead. The construction of walls around African, Islamic, and Latin American Art would add a meaningful sense of place and spatial permanence to these collection areas. Enclosure should not terrify the curator. It should be recognized as an empowering, enunciatory act.
To be sure, Princeton’s new art museum is an outstanding work of architecture. Its centrality on campus is commendable, and its neobrutalist façade is compelling. However, our shared optimism for this project makes us all the more attuned to its overt missteps. It’s one thing to build a museum. It’s another to fill it.
Robert Mohan is a senior from Phoenix studying Art & Archaeology (History of Art). He can be reached at robert.mohan[at]princeton.edu.
Madison Anderson is a junior from Rochester studying Art & Archaeology (History of Art), and is a former Cartoonist for the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at ma6148[at]princeton.edu.
KATHERINE SHEA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
The unlabeled hallway for African Art at the museum.
COURTESY OF ROBERT MOHAN.
Illustration of how geographic galleries are allocated on the second floor, showcasing three “tiers” of display.
‘An homage to creativity in all its forms’: Mosaic restaurant lives up to the hype
By Gavin McLoughlin Head Prospect Editor
After nearly five years of construction and curiosity, the new Princeton University Art Museum is finally complete. Officially opened on Halloween, the new museum’s gallery space is almost fivefold the size of the previous at a staggering 80,000 square feet. The galleries feature an impressive and eclectic array of masterpieces, from Monet’s wistful impressionism to Basquiat’s urgent, sharp style. While the museum’s daring design and vast collection will draw most people’s attention, the museum also boasts its very own fine dining restaurant and bakery, Mosaic.
On an early Saturday afternoon, I made my way past the museum’s buzzing crowds of families, couples, and professors alike to the restaurant located on the third floor.
Inspired by the museum’s pursuit of artistic evolution and “encounters with cultures past and present from around the world,” Mosaic, as its name suggests, seeks to be “an homage to creativity in all its forms.”
When I entered the stylishly adorned room, which presented a thoughtful blend of the museum’s exterior brutalist architecture, comforting mid-century modern shades of amber yellow and piercing navy blue, and a thoughtfully hand-painted mosaic inspired by French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, the restaurant was already filled with older couples and families.
Greeted warmly by a pair of hostesses, my friend and I, after confirming our reservation, were quickly ushered to our table.
While the bustling room hummed with the faint murmur of conversation, I was taken aback by a striking lack of students, with my friend and I appearing to be the only ones. After receiving the menu, it didn’t take long to understand why.
While the restaurant’s prices are not outrageous for a restaurant of its style, Mosaic’s menu is clearly not geared toward the average college student.
poached in a sauce made from tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion, and garlic) to a “Citrus & Avocado” salad, which contained a surprising medley of fennel, a creamy avocado sauce, grapefruit, and yuzu. Mosaic’s menu, while incredibly eclectic and experimental, exhibited a purposeful restraint, clearly pursuing a quality over quantity approach.
This deliberate direction is seen in the restaurant’s executive chef, Eric Dantis. Expanding on his multicultural background and professional culinary education in French cuisine, Dantis’ creative vision is eclectic, daring, and thoughtful. Ordering a mix of dishes, including the honeynut squash soup, soft scrambled eggs, and the avocado salad I was soon convinced by Dantis’ vision.
MOSAIC MOSAIC
The restaurant, open from Thursday to Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. It is meant to effectively replace the Garden Room at Prospect House.
Although Mosaic Bakery’s prices are generally standard, the restaurant’s cheapest “true entree” costs $19, with protein add-ons adding up to an additional $12 for chicken.
That being said, I was immediately struck by Mosaic’s diverse and bold menu choices. The offerings span from the Maghrebi dish of Shakshuka (eggs
The restaurant’s honeynut squash soup ($12), seemingly basic on the surface, delivered an excellent, nuanced, and robust flavor. With every spoonful, the soup introduced a brief incision of sweetness before quickly inundating your palate with a savory coat of tomato. The dish was anchored by a hint of spice provided by the Aleppo pepper, a staple of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine.
While not as revolutionary as the soup, Mosaic’s soft scrambled eggs ($24), grounded with a layer of spicy chorizo and decorated with strings of pickled onions and an almost ashy layer of salsa macha (a rich blend of dried chilies), captured a hybrid of contrasting textures and flavors. The soft, creamy, nearly French-style scrambled eggs combined with the rich flavor and coarse texture of the chorizo, the slight tang of the pickled onions, and salsa macha made for a strong and mouthwatering punch. The only drawback of the dish was its bread — half-drenched from the chorizo and still half crunchy — seemed unsure of what it wanted to add to the dish.
Finally, surprisingly, the most significant and transformative moment of the meal by far was the citrus and avoca-
do salad. Truly the best salad I’ve ever had, the daring assortment of umami flavors, complimented by a creamy avocado and an acutely sweet yuzu sauce, elevated this entrée to immense heights. The salad’s sauces neutralized the usual tartness of the grapefruit, bringing the texture of the fruit slices and baked fennel to the forefront of the dish. While each ingredient is far too intense or bare by itself, together, the distinct parts create something truly exceptional, proving the entree’s strength to be rooted in the sum of its parts.
Impressed by the entrees, we then ordered the crepe cake ($12) and the waffle ice cream sandwich ($12) for dessert. While externally stunning, adorned with layered chocolate and edible gold, the ice cream sandwich sadly failed to make a strong impression. The expected crunch from the waffle and the chocolate lacked structure. Unfortunately, the ice cream’s consistency was frozen hard, making it nearly impossible to eat without ruining the entire presentation. Finally, the crepe cake, with bright pink layers alternating with mascarpone, was topped with a cake crumble and sugar-coated cranberries, forming a stunningly intricate final product. At first taste, the dessert felt like a rich cheesecake. However, a few bites in, the texture of the crepe served as a thoughtful constraint to what would have been an otherwise overwhelming flavor. The cake’s toppings of pie crumble and “cranberry curd” also elevated the dish, once again demonstrating thoughtfully integrated intense flavors that, in full context, advance the dish as a whole. While Mosaic’s collection of dishes may seem arbitrary or unexpected at first, in context, just like the art museum itself, its interwoven perspectives, unified together, generate a powerful and exciting experience.
Gavin McLoughlin, a member of the Class of 2028, is a head editor for The Prospect. He can be reached at gm9041@princeton.edu.
I tried the $13 matcha at the Princeton University Art Museum so you don’t have to
By Amy Jeon
Contributing Prospect Writer
When I sat down to view the menu of Mosaic in the Princeton University Art Museum, I didn’t expect to see a list of shocking prices — the $13 matcha latte left me floored. For a restaurant in the middle of a college campus, the prices didn’t seem to reflect the spending abilities of the average students passing through.
The matcha latte came with a thick layer of deep green foam, hinting at hopes of richly concentrated, ceremonial matcha. However, the drink itself was disappointing: pale, milky green, and tasting similar to Starbucks matcha. Clumps of matcha remained at the bottom of the mug, suggesting poor blending, and the taste was overwhelmingly vegetal with no complexity. For an outrageous price of $13, the matcha latte was a huge letdown.
The rest of the beverage selection — including soft drinks, teas, coffee drinks, and mocktails — was more impressive. In addition to the matcha, I ordered a mocktail called “Fruit From The Tropics” and a regular latte.
The Fruit From The Tropics mocktail stole the show in its refreshing flavor profile. Presented in a glass topped with a slice of lime, the mocktail consisted of passionfruit, citrus and coconut. Passionfruit was the main note, but the citrus zest added a sour tinge that complemented the beverage’s fruity sweetness. The coconut took a backseat, only appearing as a slight hint. At $12, the drink was a delicious investment.
MOSAIC MOSAIC
The latte arrived with a teaspoon and sweetener on the side. Both the latte and matcha latte came in distinctive ceramic mugs, underscoring the restau-
rant’s implicit artistic eccentricity. The warm latte was unsweetened, with a silky layer of foam on top. The coffee itself was extremely deep in flavor with a strong aftertaste. The restaurant uses a locally-sourced blend from Small World Coffee. For a price point of $7, the latte was extremely worthwhile.
The pastry menu featured an impressive variety. I ordered a cinnamon bun, pumpkin oatmeal cookie, chocolate croissant, and crepe cake. Every pastry arrived on a colorful ceramic plate, turning the dining table into a visual palette.
The cinnamon bun was warm and comforting with roasted apples — a spin on a classic dessert. The glaze, slightly caramelized, held notes of chai and autumnal spices. Meanwhile, the bread itself was a delicious dichotomy of textures. It was slightly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. A quintessential autumn staple, the cinnamon bun was well worth its $12 price point.
On the other hand, the pumpkin oatmeal cookie came slightly stale, with a hardened glaze and a sprinkle of crumble toppings. The cookie’s texture was a distinct combination of chewy, crunchy, and grainy. The flavor profile featured a deep nuttiness, while the pumpkin was barely detectable. Although the cookie wasn’t entirely unenjoyable, it was quite unremarkable. For $3, it felt appropriately priced.
The chocolate croissant was on par with those from most cafes. The croissant was flaky on the outside, and the inside was soft and spongy. There was very little chocolate in the pastry itself, despite its name. For $4, the croissant was worth its price.
Ultimately, the crepe cake took the cake, literally, with its deliciously absurd combination of
orange mascarpone and cranberry curd. While many of the restaurant’s other desserts were classics, the crepe cake was daring. Its main flavors of orange and cranberry took turns taking charge, creating a curious but pleasant tasting experience. The cake was visually appealing in its alternating layers of white and pink with the mascarpone and curd. Priced at $12, the crepe cake was my favorite pastry and one that I highly recommend.
Generally, the restaurant’s item prices were on the higher end, and the beverages in particular felt overpriced. A trip to
Small World or Maman would offer beverages with the same quality at far lower prices.
However, many of the pastries and desserts were well-priced, especially given that the restaurant’s bakery prepares them. Although the restaurant is housed in a location central to students on campus, the menu suggests a target demographic of tourists and professors.
Amy Jeon is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at aj9410[at]princeton.edu.
AMY JEON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN A matcha latte from Mosaics Restaurant.
AMY JEON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN The Crepe Cake at Mosaic.
Start exploring the new art museum with these five standout pieces
By Daily Princetonian Staff
In the Princeton University Art Museum’s maze-like galleries of eye-catching material, it can be hard to know what to look at first. While there are many paths, there are also highlights you won’t want to miss. If you’re planning a visit to the museum, but only have a short time to stop by or feel overwhelmed by the abundance, consider our recommendations for your itinerary.
“Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge” by Claude Monet
Inhabiting a wall of its own in the European Pavilion, Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge” is both a classic and one of many — it is one in a series of about 250 oil paintings of water lilies by Monet. Princeton’s entry recalls similar pieces in the National Gallery of Art in DC, the National Gallery in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
In Princeton’s museum, the saturated blue pattern backing the painting’s ornate golden frame strongly contrasts the pastels of Monet’s impressionist water garden. The longer I looked, the more the contrast pulled me towards the painting. The pale greens and blues almost melt into the backdrop of willows. The colors — while muted — do not blend entirely. The painting’s overall atmosphere exudes quiet serenity. When viewing the piece, I was surrounded by a group of fellow captivated onlookers. “Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge” serves as a place of refuge. A moment of calm to slow down, reset, and start again.
Emma Cinocca is a member of the Class of 2027 and a staff writer for The Prospect. She can be reached at ec1078@princeton.edu.
“Notary” by Jean-Michel Basquiat Bold, electric, and delightfully hectic, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Notary” captures
art as a commodity. The art seems set into motion, transforming into a bank note. In his scrawling artistic style, Basquiat weaves haphazardly placed words together under the theme of transaction. The word “PLUTO” is repeatedly crossed out and rewritten with a copyright symbol. Meanwhile, the words “LEECHES,” “FLEAS,” and “DEHYDRATED” are painted on the right side of the canvas — which implies that creating art under the pressure of art collectors can suck the creativity from the art-making process. A frenzied anatomical figure takes charge of the center of the canvas, while the phrase “study of the male torso” is written on the right — possibly an allusion to da Vinci’s anatomical drawings.
In “Notary,” Basquiat’s weaves seemingly disparate motifs, evocative phrases, and frenetic brushstrokes to create a thrillingly curious viewing experience. The piece’s combined elements have a striking freneticism as they trace the feverish movement of figures and subtle themes.
Amy Jeon is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at aj9410@princeton.edu.
“Torso of an emperor in armor, ca. 50-100 CE”
Despite being fragmented remains, this marble torso looms over the Ancient Mediterranean gallery. Immortalizing a now unidentifiable Roman emperor, the sculpture
asserts its presence with its hulking size, intricate carvings, and fascinating history. The breastplate is adorned with the fatal head of Medusa, and the striking flourishes of the armor also demand attention. The winged Victories at the center of the torso erect a trophy by nailing non-Roman shields to a tree, a powerful symbol meant to legitimize the unknown emperor as a respected conqueror.
The sculpture, like many others in the gallery, would have once been painted with vibrant hues. Remnants of ancient restoration hint at the complex political backdrop surrounding the statue’s iterations. Having been knocked down and altered, the statue underwent a process known as Damnation Memoriae, the purging of all traces of an evil emperor after their reign.
Whatever emperor the torso belonged to, the magnitude of this figure are apparent with its elegance and detail.
Mia Mazzeo is a contributing writer for The Prospect and is a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at mm4755@ princeton.edu.
“The Center of Creation (Michael)” by Mario Moore
The museum’s second-floor orientation gallery is a hodgepodge of some of its most impressive and arresting works, each one vying for patrons’ attention. However, “The Center of Creation (Michael)” by Mario Moore stands out for its stature and contrast to other oil portraits nearby. The painting was created during Moore’s 2018-19 Hodder Fellowship at Princeton, during which he produced portraits of numerous Black staff members on campus. Here, Moore’s painting portrays security guard Michael Moore — no relation to the artist — who was employed at the art museum itself before its revamp. He holds the elevator door open to reveal the Kienbusch Galleries of the old mu-
seum building, now reimagined as an exhibition of Black artists, including Charles White and Barkley Hendricks. The portrait captures the softened realism of an excellent oil painting, and its sharp details give the sense of its subject’s fully fleshed-out life.
Among a globe-spanning lineup of household names and artworks, “The Center of Creation” provides an opportunity for patrons to connect with the museum’s local and historical context. According to the corresponding wall plaque, the piece is a “visual corrective” to the museum’s previous systems of collection and display. Centering this painting is a striking claim that these past issues have been addressed, and will hopefully serve to keep the museum accountable for continuing to create a space that highlights diverse artworks and the people who take care of them.
Lily Hutcheson is a member of the Class of 2028 and an assistant editor for The Prospect and a contributing constructor for the Puzzles Section.
“Intrigue” by Morris Louis
From a series of paintings known as the Veil paintings, “Intrigue” is a work from Morris Louis’ period of stylistic maturation. Familiar with his work, I recognized signature atmospheric colors, particularly hues layered upon one another with a harmonious lightness. The colors intermingle with both the material of the canvas and each other. Intrigue’s tones are muted while still engaging. Louis’ masterful manipulations of color led to an atmospheric and aura-like effect in the viewing experience, particularly arising from the manner in which they drip across the entirety of the canvas.
Leia Pei is a contributing writer for The Prospect. She is a member of the Class of 2029, and can be reached at lp2943[at]princeton.edu.
Tired of Firestone? Try these study options at the Princeton University Art Museum
By Kaichen Chou
Contributing Prospect Writer
Why scroll through Instagram reels during sneaky study breaks when you can stroll through beautiful, refined exhibits to clear your head instead? Since the opening of the new Princeton University Art Museum on Halloween, I explored several of its spaces to identify study spots that could potentially top my go-to cubicles at Firestone — and maybe even yours.
Grand Hall
The Grand Hall, located past the art museum’s gift shop on the first floor, is a vast and open space. There’s plenty of seating, perfect for chatting with friends or taking a break from peering at exhibitions. Miniature chestnut-and-taupe couches, some back-to-back, are placed throughout the floor. The couches, along with several mustard yellow-and-orange-cushioned chairs, are paired with small, marbled coffee tables in front of them.
Above, glass walls exhibit a portion of the museum’s collection of ceramic trinkets, sculptures, and porcelain items on shelves. Natural lighting emanating from the gridded skylight ceiling illuminates the room in the daytime. At the front, a large projector display mostly remains black and dormant, but occasionally portrays graphics.
While the environment is certainly relaxing, I would not consider Grand Hall an all-rounder study spot. Although the room is relatively spacious and offers comfortable seating options, you might be out of luck if you need a surface. The couches, while a good spot to write essays, are definitely not the space for you if you need a hard surface to physically write on. Not only are the coffee tables small, they are quite low — so you might risk a trip to Frist Health Center for back pain before finishing your p-set. The Grand Hall works if
you prefer a semi-busy atmosphere and do not need a table to work on.
Outdoor Pavilion
In my search for a better study space, I headed outside, where I was greeted with a series of green metal tables and chairs below the museum’s northwest cantilever. Along the edge, patio umbrellas shield the tables from harsh sunlight, adding a nice touch to the area’s overall appearance. While the chairs were slightly wobbly and are not the most comfortable to sit in — especially compared to the lush and full seating inside Grand Hall — the circular tables provided ample surface area to work on.
With a gorgeous autumn view of fall leaves and cycling students, studying felt relaxing and unrestrictive and provided a great change of scenery from the usual blank walls of Firestone’s basement. I also appreciated the ability to glance ahead and see the hustle and bustle of each passerby which made the space feel more lively and motivating.
While the pavilion area is an amazing choice for folks who desire fresh air while studying, it is worth noting that the outdoors may become a less practical option as we quickly approach winter with earlier sunsets. To this point, as I studied, the wind grew progressively more frigid, and the sunset at 5 p.m. cut my session short. For this reason, to maximize your study experience outside the art museum, take advantage of the warmer and sunnier daylight hours. Once spring rolls around, though, I can imagine the pavilion area being a reliable, productive location for me as well as many others.
Mosaic Restaurant
As soon as I walked into the restaurant, located on the third floor of the museum, I was greeted by soft, natural lighting that permeated the room through translucent ivory curtains. The golden hour sun enveloped the
room in rays of sunshine, creating a cozy environment ideal for work. At the front, a multi-colored tiled mosaic, paying homage to the restaurant’s name, contributed to the room’s luxurious essence. Brown square dining tables fill the space, topped with glass vases holding foliage.
Beneath the curtains, a dining table spanning the wall stood out to me as an ideal spot to study. The large glass windows ahead offered a beautiful view of Dod Hall and other nearby buildings. If you get hungry, Mosaic’s comprehensive menu offers a wide range of options, from desserts and baked goods to coffee, tea, and other beverages. While the prices of the main courses on their menu are steep, their desserts are quite reasonably priced and could serve as a convenient and affordable source of energy during long study sessions. Although Mosaic appears to cater more to visitors than students due to
some of its higher-end prices, the atmosphere is still comparable to that of any typical coffee shop, making it an optimal setting for getting work done. However, Mosaic closes at 3 p.m. on most weekdays and the weekend, and is closed completely from Tuesday to Wednesday — so be sure to keep an eye out for available times during your next study session.
In all, although the art museum provides enjoyable views and comfortable spaces, I still prefer Firestone for urgent assignments and longer study sessions. That being said, the new museum spaces offer a change in scenery that I, as well as many other students, will appreciate in the waning weeks of the fall semester.
Kaichen Chou, member of the Class of 2029, is a contributing writer for the Prospect and a copy staffer. She can be reached at kc2050[at]princeton.edu.
KAICHEN CHOU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Mosaic Restaurant
KAICHEN CHOU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Princeton University Art Museum’s Outdoor Pavillon
KAICHEN CHOU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Princeton University Art Museum’s Grand Hall.
Despite Adjaye’s effective scrubbing from art museum, Princeton retains ties with Adjaye Associates internship
By Luke Grippo assistant news editor
When the Princeton University Art Museum began construction, Sir David Adjaye was hailed as the genius architect behind its construction. Now, after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced in 2023, the only remnant of his name on campus is an international internship that will be offered by the University for the third summer in a row.
Adjaye has been entirely absent from the University’s promotion of the art museum and was not invited to the building’s grand opening on Halloween. His firm, Adjaye Associates, declined to comment on his relationship with the University.
Adjaye is known for his work on the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado. Lauded by former U.S. President Barack Obama and the late Queen Elizabeth II, the Ghanian-British architect was knighted in 2017 and received the 2021 Royal Gold Medal for his innovative work in diversifying a field that had been predominantly populated by white men.
He and his firm, Adjaye Associates, were widely praised for their design of the art museum, a hulking neo-brutalist structure. Adjaye had designed the building with the goal of creating “a campus within a campus.” Unlike many art museums, the vast majority of collections are laid out on one ex-
pansive floor, a move meant to “place all the cultures on a more equitable level.”
Prior to the allegations, he had also been commissioned to design a new student center for Rice University, and a new housing complex for Grinnell College. Both projects were in development at the same time as Princeton’s art museum.
In 2023, Adjaye was accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and fostering a toxic work environment by three anonymous former employees in a story reported by The Financial Times. Despite forcefully denying the allegations, his name was scrubbed from many of his high-profile projects, including the University art museum’s external lettering and the Studio Museum in Harlem, N.Y.C.
Both Rice and Grinnell decided to end their relationships with Adjaye. Grinnell switched to the firm OPN Architects, while Rice announced earlier this year that the firm Olson Kundig would be taking over the project.
However, Adjaye’s firm retains at least one link to Princeton.
Every year, the University’s Office of International Programs (OIP) offers a wide selection of international internships through its International Internships Program (IIP). The program will be offering an internship with Adjaye’s firm for a third year this summer, in Accra, Ghana.
According to OIP spokesperson Michelle Tong, the idea for offering the internship initially sprung from a “Create Your
Own” internship that a student proposed for the summer of 2023. After the student reported having “an excellent experience that confirmed their interest in architecture,” OIP decided to offer an official Adjaye Associates internship as an “opportunity to work in a multi-national firm with a foothold in both Europe and Africa.”
In her statement to The Daily Princetonian, Tong said that OIP has consistently received positive reviews from the students who complete the internship.
Applications for IIPs close in the winter before the summer they are offered. The controversy surrounding Adjaye was made public in July 2023, after the first student had already begun the internship.
However, Tong wrote that students who participate in the internship do not interact with
Adjaye himself. Rather, students “were mentored and supervised on a day-to-day basis by professionals within [Adjaye Associates],” she said.
“Our priority is to continue to offer internships that are relevant, meaningful, and help students achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals,” she added.
Adjaye currently retains two high-profile projects in his portfolio: the Museum of West African Art, which will open Nov. 11 in Nigeria, and an expansion for the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi, which will open in 2026.
Luke Grippo is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey, and typically covers University and town politics, on a national, regional, and local scale. He can be reached at lg5452[at]princeton.edu.
KATHERINE SHEA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Grand Hall.
The art museum in black and white
By Lianne Chapin Head Archives Editor
Art Museum. n. “Once a sophisticated first date spot in the middle of campus. Now, a pile of construction materials that makes you walk three extra minutes to get to Firestone.”
It was with this definition that the 146th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian introduced the art museum to the incoming Class of 2026 in its annual first-year dictionary. Since then, each incoming class has entered Princeton knowing the Art Museum for what it had been before they arrived, or for what it might become in the distant future.
While campus construction has been a theme of the last few years — an April 2023 humor piece in the ‘Prince’ advertised a magazine-style quiz asking students, “Which ongoing campus construction project are you?” — it’s nothing new. The ‘Prince’ has covered the art museum’s many demolitions and construction projects since the paper’s beginning From sketches of expansion plans to scathing letters to the editor (formerly known as the Chairman), the archives of The Daily Princetonian tell the story of an art museum that is constantly changing shape.
When the Board of Trustees met to discuss the fundraising plans for an “Art School” in February 1887, the ‘Prince’ reporters in attendance got an early look at the sketches for the University’s first art museum building. The following March, the ‘Prince’ reported that the building, which would cost $90,000 when completed, would be fireproof, with a lower story made from “Newark brownstone” and the top from brick. The new museum would house the University’s growing collection of art, some
of which came from donations contingent on the fireproof nature of the building.
An 1891 column began, “As it is of much importance that all should have some knowledge of the work going on in the various departments of the college, a brief description of the especial point of interest in connection with the departments of Art and Archaeology, may here be in place.” Students who read on could learn about the paintings, pottery, and sculptures that would be on display in the new building, which was set to open in 1890.
More evolution came in 1901, when readers of the ‘Prince’ learned that Professor Allan Marquand, the Marquand Library’s namesake, had made his personal art library available to students as a companion to the art museum. In 1923, Marquand spoke at the dedication of McCormick Hall, the first addition to the original structure. A year later, the ‘Prince’ announced its opening to visitors for the first time after the expansion.
In 1930, the ‘Prince’ brought news of yet another addition, whose reception by students was made clear in a 1935 column titled, “The Great Wall of McCormick,” in which students of the “lower Campus” lamented the detours it created on their walks from Brown and Cuyler Halls to McCosh and Dickinson.
“Campus eyesore renovated during summer by vigorous potion of Princeton architects,” read a 1935 headline in the pages of the ‘Prince.’
Plans for more expansion appeared in 1957 and again in 1964 when large parts of the existing structure were demolished, leaving only a 140-foot strip of the original structure, salvaged windows, and roof tiles. A 1963 article announcing the preparations for demolition began, “A
death warrant is scrawled on the door of the Art Museum.”
Despite the demolition’s critical reception — a student wrote a letter to the ‘Prince’ calling the renovation “the rape of McCormick” — the new museum opened in 1966. Its director, Patrick J. Kelleher, was quoted in the ‘Prince’ emphasizing its transformation into a “teaching museum.”
Another renovation period began in 1986, inviting complaints from seniors who had to relocate their thesis installations. When the new additions opened in 1989, Arts Editor Bruce Searby ’90 sang its praises in the pages of the ‘Prince,’ calling it a “quick fix – but one sparing absolutely nothing in quality.”
The museum was once again renovated in the early 2000’s, with Arts contributor Nathan Floody ’05 comparing the ubiquity of construction sites on campus with the volume of Starbucks stores in New York City.
“Construction on campus can be described using the old
saying about Starbucks cafes on New York street corners: stand anywhere, look around, and you’ll see one,” he wrote. 15 years later, the prospect of demolition returned to the pages of the ‘Prince’ in 2018 when readers of the ‘Prince’ learned that construction would begin on a totally new museum in 2020. In 2021, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, a piece by Olivia Kasule ’26 covered students’ concerns about the lack of a dedicated space for art. Now, four years and one “Which ongoing campus construction project are you?” quiz later, the art museum is open once again. Nearly 140 years after the ‘Prince’ got to see plans for the very first art museum on campus, reporters from the ‘Prince’ covered all 24 hours of the art museum’s grand reopening, joining over a century of their predecessors in documenting the museum’s ever-shifting form.
Lianne Chapin is a head Archives editor for the ‘Prince.’
CHARLES SHAVER ‘66 / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Wood framing falls off the art museum.
