Vassar Atheneum

About the publication

The Vassar Atheneum (2024) is a unique, site-specific installation located at the Heartwood that showcases the extraordinary history of Vassar College through a selection of masterworks and curiosities of its material culture.

Created by the artist Mark Dion, the Atheneum highlights the vibrancy of student life at the college and underscores the interdisciplinary thinking at the heart of a liberal arts education. The material culture on display reflects the rich nexus of objects and ideas that have shaped Vassar’s identity over its 160-year history.

Dion also designed forty-eight heraldic shields, one for each academic discipline represented at the college, in a playful nod at the neo-Gothic aspirations of American collegiate culture. The shields’ contemporary color scheme and iconography undercut the nostalgic potential of such a display. A custom-made rug designed by the artist features the traditional Vassar colors, rose and gray, and an ornate pattern based on insignia that adorned class rings and pins in the college’s early days.

With irony, humor, and improvisation, Dion deconstructs traditional methods of collecting, arranging, and exhibiting objects by incorporating them into his installations. Dion’s work is often inspired by the sixteenth-century European concept of a Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosity, a collection of objects ranging from natural history specimens to works of art of every category, that reflect the personal taste and means of their collector. His Atheneum offers a critical retelling of Vassar’s distinctive history.

Contributors: Jessica D. Brier, Curator of Photography, the Loeb; Emma Gronbeck, Vassar College Archivist, Vassar College Libraries; Jeffrey Jenkins, Artist, Graphic Designer; Richard L. Jones, Laboratory Coordinator and Collections Manager, Department of Earth Science & Geography; Vassar College Emma Larson, Class of 2025; Mary-Kay Lombino, Deputy Director and the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator, the Loeb; John McCleary, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics, Vassar College; Anna Molloy, Class of 2023; Molly Nesbit, Professor of Art on the Mary Conover Mellon Chair, Vassar College, Class of 1974; Elizabeth Nogrady, Class of 1999; Ronald Patkus, Head of Special Collections and College Historian, Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair, Vassar College; Alyx Raz, Assistant Curator, the Loeb, Class of 2016; lan Shelley, Loeb Collections Curatorial Fellow, Class of 2022; Laura Streett, Digital Archivist & E-Resources Librarian, Vassar College Libraries; Betsy Subiros, Class of 2025; T. Barton Thurber, The Anne Hendricks Bass Director, the Loeb