The Making of

THE ART OF WELL-BEING

April 16, 2021 – August 22, 2021

This exhibition —The Art of Well-Being — will not attempt to define either art or well-being.  Rather it presents a range of works from the collection of the Muscarelle Museum of Art selected to explore those ideas.  The exhibition has five sections—individual; kin; community; natural world; and art making.   Individually and in groups, the paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and other media shown here express the needs, pleasures, desires, and aspirations of individuals, communities, and the wider world.  At the same time the works chosen evoke the web of connections among these perspectives, whether providing a space for quiet contemplation or a call to action; freedom from worldly interests or concern for society; a reminder of communal bustle and conviviality or identification with the non-human.  Art—as these choices suggest—is a way of knowing, doing, and being in the world that prompts reconsideration of what well-being means.  It also provides a “language” (in the words of philosopher Nelson Goodman) with which to communicate complex ideas about the world.  The language of art (which in all its iterations combines skill and creative thinking) has an advantage over many other languages in its nuance of approach and tolerance of ambiguity; art encourages complex thinking and empathy.  Our hope is that reconsidering well-being through the lens of art will expand what that term means.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

OPEN

FAITH RINGGOLD, The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, 1996, Faith Ringgold © 1996

VIRTUAL INSTALLATION

MAKING THE EXHIBITION

INSTALLATION VIEWS

Photos by Adriano Marinazzo

STUDENT CURATORS

The Art of Well-Being has been curated by students in The Curatorial Project, a course taught by Catherine Levesque, Associate Professor of Art History during the spring 2021 semester.