Q, 2017, Oil on Canvas, 78 x 60 inches

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College announces See It Now: Contemporary Art from the Ann and Mel Schaffer Collection, a sweeping exhibition that celebrates art and artists brought together over five decades by Ann Schapps Schaffer ’62 and Mel Schaffer. Featuring over one hundred artworks, See It Now highlights bold and incisive artworks that grapple with the complexities of contemporary life.

The exhibition foregrounds artists whose works probe questions of race, migration, loss, gender, belonging—issues at the center of today’s world. Drawing from the Schaffers’ renowned private collection—formed with a spirit of curiosity and a commitment to artists at pivotal moments—See It Now offers audiences a rare, in-depth opportunity to view works by artists who have shaped the last half-century of art.

Highlights include multiple works by Vik Muniz and Cindy Sherman, large-scale paintings by Jordan Casteel, Hugo McCloud, and Kehinde Wiley, a Nick Cave’s Soundsuit, as well as works by Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jim Hodges, Deana Lawson, Wangechi Mutu, Kiki Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and many more.

“Ann and Mel have collected with empathy and curiosity—bringing together artists who explore identity, memory, and social justice with rigor and heart,” says Ian Berry, Dayton Director. “By placing these works in public view during our 25th-anniversary year, we’re inviting audiences to engage with art that can be messy and vulnerable, complex and contradictory, joyful and alive; works that continue to speak to the urgencies of the present.”

“We’ve always collected with curiosity,” says Ann Schapps Schaffer. “Your soul has to run through a collection. We don’t just hang art; the pieces have to speak to one another—about life and death, giving and taking, and how we live together now.”