Image of Disease Thrower #10
Image courtesy of Guadalupe Maravilla and P·P·O·W, New York.

A newly acquired work in the Williams College Museum of Art’s (WCMA) collection is the result of a student proposal from the fall 2021 course Acquiring Art: Selecting and Purchasing Objects for WCMA.

In the class—a collaboration between WCMA and the economics department—students visit galleries and auction houses to source works of art that align with the museum’s collecting priorities. They present their works to WCMA staff, and the museum purchases those deemed most impactful for the collection at the best price.

The students describe the most recent acquisition, Disease Thrower #10 by artist Guadalupe Maravilla, as “an exploration of and a healing mechanism for the trauma of [Maravilla’s] childhood migration fleeing the civil war in El Salvador and his adult battle with colon cancer.” Disease Thrower, which combines found objects and materials that reflect Indigenous and pre-colonial knowledge, contemporary political commentary and personal history, is on view through Dec. 22 in the WCMA exhibition “Remixing the Hall.”

Guadalupe Maravilla, Disease Thrower #10, 2020. Museum purchase through the Fulkerson Fund for Leadership in the Arts, proposed by the students in the course Acquiring Art: Selecting and Purchasing Objects for WCMA, fall 2021.