Wexner Center for the Arts

The Wexner Center is made available to Ohio State University students and scholars for study, and is open to the public. The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limited Brands founder Leslie Wexner, who was a major donor to the center.

The precursor was the University Gallery of Fine Art which was curated by the university's fine art director. In 1970, under Director Betty Collings' leadership, the gallery began hosting major contemporary artists and acquiring the collection that would become the Wexner Center as a response to student grievances about the Kent State shootings. In the 1980s, Jonathan Green became director and acquired art that expressed activism. The gallery's final exhibit was “AIDS: The Artists’ Response” in 1989 prior to the opening of the Wexner Center. The $43 million Wexner Center, commissioned by Ohio State University, was named after the father of Leslie H. Wexner, chairman of Limited Brands, an Ohio native and Ohio State alumnus who pledged $25 million to the project. Peter Eisenman won the design competition for the Wexner in 1983 over four other, more experienced finalists: Cesar Pelli; Michael Graves; Kallmann McKinnell & Wood; and Arthur Erickson. (Each was paired with a local architect.) Progressive Architecture magazine devoted a whole issue to the building even before it was finished. The Wexner Center opened on November 17, 1989, and architects like Philip Johnson, Richard Meier and Charles Gwathmey convened in Columbus to mark the building's completion with a public forum on the state of American architecture. The event was hailed by The New York Times as "one of the most eagerly awaited architectural events of the last decade." During its three-year renovation between 2002 and 2005, the Wexner relocated its galleries in a former coffin factory two miles away, while the performing arts and film programs continued at the center. It typically drew 200,000 to 250,000 visitors a year before the renovation. In November 2005, the Wexner Center reopened. Following the release of the Epstein files, which revealed Les Wexner's close ties with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, protestors submitted a formal name review and called for Wexner's surname to be removed from the center.

The Wexner Center's 108,000 square feet (10,000 m2), three-story building was designed by architects Peter Eisenman of New York and the late Richard Trott of Columbus with landscape architect Laurie Olin of Philadelphia. It was the first major public building to be designed by Eisenman, previously known primarily as a teacher and theorist. Based on the controversial theory that art should be "challenged" by its environment rather than displayed neutrally, the museum raised Eisenman's profile and he went on to design and build a number of other major projects including the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. When determining the site, Eisenman and Trott rejected four options from OSU in favor of their own site between Weigel Hall, home of the School of Music, and Mershon Auditorium, a 3,000-seat hall. The design includes a large, white metal grid meant to suggest scaffolding, to give the building a sense of incompleteness in tune with the architect's deconstructivist tastes. Eisenman also took note of the mismatched street grids of the OSU campus and the city of Columbus, which vary by 12.25 degrees, and designed the Wexner Center to alternate which grids it followed. The result was a building of sometimes questionable functionality, but admitted architectural interest. The center's brick turrets make reference to the Ohio State University Armory and Gymnasium, a castle-like building that occupied the site until 1958. Included in the Wexner Center space are a film and video theater, a performance space – the Mershon Center stage, which seats 2,500 for dance, music, theater, multimedia productions and lectures –, a film and video post production studio, a bookstore, café, and 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of galleries. The galleries are placed linearly in the building space to emphasize progression. The Fine Arts Library was located to the lower level of the building. Devoid of natural light, the architects employed an alternating warm and cool fluorescent lighting to mimic daylight and a grey palate that put the focus on the collection. In 1993, the Wexner Center installed Maya Lin's large-scale site-specific installation Groundswell. The work reinterprets Eastern and Western landscape forms in shattered tempered glass to fill in three sites of the building's design. That year, the building won the American Institute of Architects' National Honor Award. The 2005 renovation originally enlisted the help of a local firm, then switched to Arup. In addition to the building envelope, the scope of renovation includes HVAC, lighting, electrical, plumbing, fire protection systems. The renovation works had a minimum impact on the original architectural design while improving environmental, daylight and climate control. With the restoration of the center as a whole, the bookstore, film and video theater, and café sections were all revamped, equipment and layout-wise.

Notable exhibitions include: Chris Marker: Silent Movie, Julie Taymor: Playing With Fire, Shirin Neshat: Suite Fantastique, As Painting: Division and Displacement, Mood River, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Part Object Part Sculpture, Twice Untitled and Other Pictures (looking back), Louise Lawler, Chris Marker Staring Back, William Wegman: Funney/Strange, Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, and William Forsythe: Transfigurations. In 2002, the Wexner staged Mood River, one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of industrial and commercial design staged in America, featuring artwork by Simparch, Tony Cragg, and E.V. Day; designs by Peter Eisenman, Kivi Sotamaa, and Ben van Berkel; and "products" like the Stealth Bomber and the Redman Self-Defense Instructor suits. In 2017, the gallery featured an exhibition by Cindy Sherman. In 2018, the Wexner showcased the works of 16 artists working in contemporary abstraction, including Eric N. Mack, Sam Gilliam and Zachary Armstrong. In 2019, the Wexner Center kicked off its 30th anniversary year of exhibitions with "HERE: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin." The Box, the Wexner Center's dedicated to video and short film work opened in September 2005 and typically offers a new piece every month. In 2022, admission to the Wexner Center for the Arts's galleries became free for all audiences.

Creative residency and commissioning projects for artists include: Bill T. Jones, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, Big Art Group, Ann Hamilton (in collaboration with Meg Stuart and subsequently with Meredith Monk), Improbable Theatre, Bebe Miller, The Builders Association, Akram Khan, Elizabeth Streb, Eiko & Koma, The Wooster Group, Savion Glover, Urban Bush Women, Anthony Davis, Richard Maxwell, da da kamera, Mark Morris, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, and Kronos Quartet.

Residencies at the Wexner Center offer support to artists and often provide opportunities for interaction with the Ohio State community and the public at large. They are an essential part of the Wex's mandate to be a creative research laboratory for all the arts. Wexner Center Residency Awards are their most substantial and high-profile residencies. They are given annually in the main program areas—performing arts, media arts (film/video), and visual arts—with some projects extending over two or more years. Other artists participating in exhibitions and performances also may receive commissions and often engage in residency activities—workshops, master classes, and discussion sessions with students or the community—during their time at the center. In addition, each year about 20 visiting filmmakers and video artists from around the world are invited to work in residence in the Film/Video Studio Program. Wexner Center Residency Award recipients include:

Portions of the Jodie Foster-directed film Little Man Tate were shot at the Wexner Center in 1991.

On March 4, 2022, staff at the Wexner Center for the Arts announced their intent to form a union with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Organizing under the name Wex Workers United, staff cited "long-standing issues at the Wex and Ohio State, including pay equity and working culture" and said that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these problems. Wex Workers United sought, but were not granted, formal voluntary recognition of the union from leadership at the Ohio State University and the Wexner Center for the Arts. On March 22, 2023, the union was ratified by unanimous vote.

As of 2021, the Wexner Center had a staff of 70 and budget of $12 million. In August 2021, it was announced that Burton would be leaving Wexner in November 2021 to become executive director of MOCA Los Angeles.

Jonathan Green Robert Stearns 1993–2019: Sherri Geldin 2018–2021: Johanna Burton 2021–2022: Megan Cavanaugh and Kelly Stevelt, co-interim executive directors 2022–2025: Gaëtane Verna