JAMES WELLING Cento
JAMES WELLING Cento September 25 - December 12, 2026
Cat. 4
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Director’s Foreword
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ast year, the Fairfield University Art Museum commemorated the 250th anniversary—or semiquincentennial—of the founding of the United States. We presented three exhibitions designed to highlight this historic occasion and surrounded them with associated programs that helped us to reflect on our nation’s complex history, culture, and artistic legacy. This fall, our special exhibitions take us to the Mediterranean to explore ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome with James Welling: Cento in the Museum’s Walsh Gallery and Hieroglyphs to Hype: The Modern Afterlife of Ancient Egypt, in the Museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries. We are extremely grateful to Jim Welling for his collaboration on this exhibition of his Cento and Personae projects. It has been a pleasure to work with him on crafting this exhibition, as well as preparing for the works to travel onward to additional venues. After its first American presentation at FUAM, Cento will go on to the George Washington University Art Gallery and then to the Nashville Parthenon in Tennessee. In Cento, visitors will see photographs of ancient sites in Italy and Greece, as well as antiquities found in museums around the world, which were subjected to digital and painterly adaptation by the artist to achieve transformative effects. As Welling explains, he is interested in “reanimating” the men and women of the ancient past through these works and connecting them to our own time in a fresh way through his innovative combination of photography and painting. Visitors to the exhibition will feel their curiosity piqued by his elusive and often haunting evocations of the ancient Mediterranean world. The photographs will be exhibited alongside a selection from the Museum’s extensive historic plaster cast collection of Greek and Roman sculpture, selected by the artist himself to complement his pieces. We are very appreciative of our faculty liaison for this exhibition, Andrew Ward, PhD (assistant professor of art history & visual culture), who wrote the thoughtful essay for this catalogue, and who will be leading two tours of the exhibition presented from an archaeologist’s perspective. We are also pleased to co-sponsor a scholarly symposium organized by Dr. Ward in conjunction with the exhibition, entitled Aesthetics, Objectivity, and Interpretation in Archaeological Visual Practices, which begins with a keynote address by Katherine Schwab, PhD (professor emerita of art history & visual culture). We would like to thank the three galleries that support James Welling’s work: Marian Goodman, Paris; Regen Projects, Los Angeles; and David Zwirner, New York. At Regen Projects, we offer a special thanks to Jennifer Loh. We are also grateful to Regen Projects for sharing with us a large quantity of special Halbe frames for this exhibition. Thanks as always go to the exceptional Museum team for their hard work in bringing this exhibition and its programming to life: Michelle DiMarzo, curator of education and academic engagement; Megan Paqua, museum registrar; Heather Coleman, museum assistant; and Elizabeth Vienneau, museum educator. We are grateful for the additional support provided across the University by Kiersten Bjork, Edmund Ross, Jackie Bertolone, and Dan Vasconez, as well as by our colleagues in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, the Media Center, the Center for Arts and Minds, and Design and Print. ~ Carey Mack Weber Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director 4
Cat. 16
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Fragments, Reconstructions, and Afterlives: James Welling’s Centones
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ear the center of this exhibition stands a plaster cast of the torso of the Greek god Poseidon (Fig. 1), once part of the architectural decoration of the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. On the Parthenon, this sculpture of Poseidon was part of a scene depicting the god’s competition with Athena over who would be the patron god of Athens. Poseidon, offering horses and salt water, would lose to the goddess, who offered the olive tree. At first glance, this cast seems to promise proximity to antiquity. Except, it is a plaster cast, a modern reproduction that combines fragments that now live separately in Athens at the Acropolis Museum and London in the British Museum, of a sculpture that had fallen from the Parthenon by the 1600s. Welling’s photograph of the torso (Fig. 2, cat. 50), meanwhile, portrays the British Museum’s fragment alone. His subtle addition of red tones to the photograph simultaneously draws our attention to the statue’s damage, while also bringing it to life as it appears to be bleeding from its wound. Both cast and photograph revive in their own ways the original “persona” of Poseidon that the ancient statue once represented. This is consistent with how the ancient Greeks and Romans understood sculpture, as almost living stand-ins for the gods, rulers, and everyday people they represented. Yet, cast and photograph do not attempt to fully restore the sculpture to its original ancient state, the missing limbs and head reminding us that the sculpture’s life after antiquity is just as important as its original form and function. A similar tension structures the history of the Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis, represented in this exhibition through Welling’s photograph of its western façade (Fig. 3, Cat. 14). Subject to multiple campaigns of restoration, from Kyriakos Pittakis in the 19th century, to Nikolaos Balanos in the early 20th, to the more rigorous interventions of the late 20th century, the building has been repeatedly remade in the name of returning it to something approaching an “original” state. Each phase introduced new materials and techniques, leaving visible traces of modern intervention on an ancient structure that had already undergone centuries of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman alteration and repair. Welling’s photograph of the building plays with this ambiguity, developed in a manner that looks old to us, yet showing the building in its more heavily restored recent form. In a similar vein, Welling’s photographs of sculpture Portrait of Kore 674 (Fig. 4, cat. 27) do not claim to revive these antiquities to their exact original states. They are portraits. Like plaster casts, these photographs are inherently new creations, translations of objects already removed from their original contexts. Yet the logic at work is similar. We now know that ancient sculptures were painted in a wide array of vibrant colors, and that the stark whiteness of classical buildings and sculpture is the result of centuries of wear and overzealous cleanings. Welling’s photographs are, in a sense, new iterations of familiar characters, personae in Welling’s own story of his interaction with classical antiquity. The exhibition’s title Cento is instructive. In poetry, the Latin term cento (plural centones) refers to a poem composed from fragments of preexisting texts, reassembled into new forms that carry echoes of their sources without necessarily entirely restoring their original meanings. The same may be said for the photographs surrounding you in the exhibition. The sculptures Welling photographs once functioned as votive offerings, funerary monuments, or portraits embedded in specific social and ritual contexts. Despite centuries
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of interest in antiquity, we can never fully envision these ancient settings. What we know of ancient Rome and Greece is like a puzzle where we are missing 95% of the pieces, and Welling assembles here what puzzle pieces remain in a way where we can both appreciate them, and recognize what is missing. ~ Andrew Farinholt Ward, PhD Assistant Professor of Art History & Visual Culture
Fig.1. Unknown Greek artist, Torso of Poseidon, ca. 438-432 BCE, plaster cast after Pentelic marble original. Gift of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004 (2019.04.01) 7
Fig. 2, Cat. 50
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Exhibition Checklist Unless otherwise noted: • all artworks are made with oil pigment, oil pastel, and wax over electrostatic print on polypropylene substrate • all dimensions are 12 x 18 inches • all artworks are courtesy of the artist 1. Acroterion, 2019 From The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods Oil and wax over UV print on Dibond aluminum
16. Caryatid, 2023 17. Delphi. Siphnian Treasury. Floral ornament, 2021 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2. Aphrodite, 2022
18. Eleusis. Telesterion. Hall of Initiation, 2020
3. Aphrodite fastening her sandal, 2020
19. Eleusis. Well of the Fair Dances, 2020
4. Apollo, 2023 5. Artemis Rospigliosi. Sandal, 2020
20. Fragment of a gold leaf wreath, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
6. Artemision Bronze, 2020
21. Gold and ivory sculpture of a goddess, 2020
7. Athens. Acanthus leaves, 2020 Oil pigment, oil pastel on aluminum offset plate 19 x 28 ½ inches (sight)
22. Grapes, 2021 23. Hands, 2019 From The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods Oil and wax over UV print on Dibond aluminum 16 x 19 ¾ inches (overall)
8. Athens. Beulé Gate and view across the Mouseion Hill, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 9. Athens. Hadrian’s Library, 2020 26 ¼ x 17 ½ inches (sight)
24. Hands, 2020 Inkjet print on polyester 20 ¾ x 19 ¾ inches (sight)
10. Athens. Kerameikos Cemetery. Sacred Way, 2021
25. Julia Mamaea, 2018 Di-chromated gelatin and dye on polypropylene substrate 14 × 11 inches
11. Athens. Parthenon. West pediment. Crowning acroterion, 2020 12. Athens. Roman Forum. Boneyard, 2020
26. Julia Mamaea, 2018 Dye transfer print on chromogenic photographic paper 14 × 11 inches
13. Athens. Temple of Olympian Zeus. Retaining wall, 2020 14. Athens. Western façade of the Erechtheion, 2020 Oil pigment and dye on laser print on polypropylene
27. Kore 674, 2021 Gamblin Cold Wax Medium over UV print on Dibond aluminum 23 x 36 inches (framed)
15. Bronze crab, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 9
Cat. 49
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28. Kore from the Kheramyes – Geneleos Group, 2020
49. Portrait of Plutarch, 2023
29. Male torso, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
50. Poseidon, after a 19th-century photograph, 2021 51. Reflection, 2022
30. Marble shell. Aporrhais pespelecani, 2020
52. Roman drinking cup, 2022
31. Peplos Kore, 2021 32. Phrasikleia, 2021
53. Roman glassware, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
33. Portrait of a bald Roman man, 2022
54. Samos. Heraion. Fragments, 2021
34. Portrait of a Greek general wearing a Corinthian helmet, 2021
55. Sounion. Temple of Poseidon, 2021
35. Portrait of a Roman man, 2022
56. Terracotta figurine, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
36. Portrait of a Roman man with curly hair, 2023 37. Portrait of a Roman woman, 2021
57. Terracotta pomegranate, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
38. Portrait of a Roman woman, 2022
58. Terracotta sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, 2020
39. Portrait of a Roman woman, 2022
59. The Calf Bearer, 2021
40. Portrait of a Roman woman, 2023
60. Touch, Venus and Mars, 2020
41. Portrait of a Roman woman from a funerary relief, 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
61. Twenty-sided die, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
42. Portrait of a young Roman woman, Antonine period, 2023
62. Woman Wearing a Himation, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
43. Portrait of an ancient Greek man, 2021 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 44. Portrait of an Augustan adolescent, 2022 45. Portrait of an Egyptian man, 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 46. Portrait of Aphrodite, 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 47. Portrait of Caligula, 2021 48. Portrait of Doryphoros (Self-portrait), 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 11
Cat. 56
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Cat. 30
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Exhibition Programs Events listed below with a location are live, in-person programs. When possible, those events will also be streamed and the recordings posted to our YouTube channel. Opening Night Lecture: James Welling: Cento Thursday, September 24, 5:30 p.m. Artist James Welling Kelley Theatre, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts and streaming on Arts & Minds Live
Exhibition Tour: James Welling: Cento Thursday, October 22, 12:45 p.m. Andrew Ward, PhD (assistant professor of art history & visual culture), offers an archaeologist’s perspective on the exhibition. Walsh Gallery, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Reception: James Welling: Cento Thursday, September 24, 6:30 p.m. Walsh Gallery and Lobby, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Exhibition Tour: James Welling: Cento Thursday, November 19, 12:45 p.m. Andrew Ward, PhD (assistant professor of art history & visual culture), offers an archaeologist’s perspective on the exhibition. Walsh Gallery, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Family Day: Getting Creative with Photography Saturday, September 26, 12:30 – 2 p.m. and 2:30 – 4 p.m. Space is limited; registration required. Lobby, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Art Workshop: Anatomical Drawing Thursday, December 3, 5 – 6:30 p.m. Andrew Ward, PhD (assistant professor of art history & visual culture) introduces participants to the James Welling: Cento exhibition, and Christopher Smith, PhD (assistant professor of biology) draws on his training as a medical illustrator to guide participants through a primer on anatomical drawing, using the plaster casts from the Fairfield University Art Museum’s Historic Plaster Cast Collection that are on view in the exhibition. Space limited to 25; registration required. Materials provided. Walsh Gallery, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Gallery Talk: Artist James Welling Select Saturdays: October 10, November 7, December 5, 3 p.m. Walsh Gallery, Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts Keynote Lecture: “Altered States? The Shifting Impact of Our Visualizations of Antiquity” Thursday, October 15, 5:30 p.m. Katherine A. Schwab, PhD (professor emerita, art history & visual culture) Part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation Dogwood Room, Barone Campus Center and streaming on Arts & Minds Live
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Symposium: Aesthetics, Objectivity, and Interpretation in Archaeological Visual Practices Friday, October 16, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Organized by Andrew Ward, PhD (assistant professor of art history & visual culture) Dogwood Room, Barone Campus Center
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Thank You! The Fairfield University Art Museum is deeply grateful to the following corporations, foundations, and government agencies for their generous support of this year’s exhibitions and programs. We also acknowledge the generosity of the Museum’s 2010 Society members, together with the many individual donors who are keeping our excellent exhibitions and programs free and accessible to all and who support our efforts to build and diversify our permanent collection.
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Cat. 33
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Cat. 21
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