University of Michigan Students Decide UMMA’s Next Acquisition in Live “Art Tank” Event

The Business of Art course helps students understand the economics of the art market by providing real word experience

December 2026—UMMA and the Ross School of Business partnered this fall to launch The Business of Art (BE 460), a groundbreaking new course that explores how art, economics, and curatorial decision making intersect. The course culminated in a live public event where students competed to select the museum’s next acquisition.

On Monday, Dec 1, 2025, students in the class participated in Subject Matters: Art Tank, a high-energy pitch competition at the museum where five student teams presented their final acquisition proposals before a live audience and a panel of UMMA curators.

The winning team proposed acquiring The man disguised as night (Anansi #29), a 2023 work by Jamaican artist Leasho Johnson. In their pitch, the students made a compelling case for how Johnson’s work would enrich UMMA’s collection, highlighting the artist’s use of materials deeply rooted in Jamaican history—such as charcoal and logwood, a plant tied to the island’s plantation past—and his process of washing hand-cut paper with indigo and coffee before layering it onto canvas.

The team, which included Annika Chinnaiyan, Alisha Gandhi, Annika Gill, Greta Gmazel, Noelle Powers, and Liz Tracy, argued that Johnson’s practice of layering reflects the Caribbean’s colonial history as a site of trauma, extraction, and resilience, while also drawing on Anansi trickster narratives from the African diaspora to explore queer identity, reinvention, and survival.

Following the team’s successful pitch, UMMA intends to purchase the work from Johnson’s gallery and add it to the Museum’s permanent collection. Once acquired, UMMA would be the first university art museum to collect his work.

Over the course of the fall 2025 semester, students in the Business of Art course took a deep dive into the inner workings of the art market, meeting with curators, visiting galleries and museums in Chicago and Detroit, and talking with art experts as they developed their acquisition proposals. Each team was given a $60,000 acquisition budget and the opportunity to learn firsthand how art moves through markets, institutions, and becomes part of collections.

“The course gives students the chance to see how value is created, not just financially but culturally,” said UMMA Curator of Art in Public Spaces Jennifer Carty, who co-teaches the class with Ross Professor Tom Buchmueller. “They are asked to think deeply about what it means for a museum to acquire an artwork, and what stories that choice will tell for future generations.”

At the culminating Art Tank event, students showcased what they learned by pitching their acquisition to a panel of curators. To convince the panel, students weighed aesthetic merit, historical significance, market strategy, budget constraints, UMMA’s collecting priorities, and more.

“At its core, this course is about how choices shape culture and create value,” said UMMA Director Christina Olsen. “It reflects UMMA’s mission to redefine the role of campus art museums and demonstrates the dynamic role art plays in research, learning, and collaboration across disciplines.”

An exhibition related to the course, Curriculum / Collection: The Business of Art is on view at UMMA through Spring 2026.