The Paul R. Jones Museum is proud to present “Public Charge”: Diasporic Immigrant Artists, November 1-December 13, 2019.

“Public Charge” features works by Latin and Caribbean artists from the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art, curated by Dr. Wendy Castenell and her ARH 490/550 class with Jones Museum curator Emily Bibb. As Dr. Castenell’s students explain in their curatorial statement about “Public Charge,” they have selected the work of “immigrant artists from the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America who have migrated from one part of the world to another, bringing with them their own cultural norms, and thereby creating a new hybrid American culture. The diasporic themes in this exhibition are relevant in today’s social and political climate, connecting artists from all cultures, in order to create a unique and original body of work that showcases art and artists from outside of the mainstream.”

The students of ARH 490/550 Art History Theory and Methods/Literature of Art are a mix of graduate students and undergraduate majors: Noah Dasinger (senior art history major, double minor in Italian and history), Nadia DelMedico (graduate student, art history), Anna Ingram (senior art history major with a studio art minor), Sarah Murphree (senior double major in art history and studio art, Blount Undergraduate Initiative minor), Taylor Nelson (junior double major in marketing and art history) and Tom Wegrzynowski (graduate student, art history).

Dr. Wendy Castenell, professor of ARH 490/550, explained how the interplay between the students’ research and their curatorial work will benefit the students: “In addition to developing these important scholarly skills, however, working directly with the objects in the Jones Collection has further pushed their boundaries. The students are pursuing a variety of specialties from Medieval and Italian Renaissance to Modern Asian and European art. Therefore this project is giving the class the opportunity to research Modern and Contemporary African American art, and most importantly, to learn to work directly with art objects in a museum collection—a skill that is essential for art historical practice.”