The Block Docent Diaries: What you Keep

Bynublockmuseum May 27, 2020 0 Comments
The Block Museum Student Docent Program is made up of students from across Northwestern University that serve as the museum’s tour guides and ambassadors. In Spring 2020, the program continues online as students connect, research, and plan in support of the Museum’s mission. We reached out to this team to learn more about their current inspiration at this time. We asked: What is...

“Becoming and becoming and becoming”: Manthia Diawara on the porous borders of identity, nation, and art [Audio]

Bynublockmuseum May 26, 2020 0 Comments
On February 2, 2019 The Block welcomed filmmaker and NYU Professor of Cinema Studies Manthia Diawara for a screening and conversation on his 2017 film An Opera of the World. A world-renowned theorist of cultural hybridity, Manthia Diawara left Mali at the age of 19, emigrating to France and later to the United States. He returned to Mali in 2008 to film rehearsals for Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera,...

Now Available: Teacher’s Resource Guide for Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time

Bynublockmuseum May 20, 2020 0 Comments
The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is proud to announce the publication of a Teacher’s Guide and a list of Recommended Resources to support educators in teaching about the history of medieval West Africa and its resonances today. The packet, accessible to a non-specialist audience, can be used alongside the touring exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time or...

The Block Docent Diaries: Works that Stay with You

Bynublockmuseum May 18, 2020 0 Comments
The Block Museum Student Docent Program is made up of students from across Northwestern University that serve as the museum’s tour guides and ambassadors. In Spring 2020, the program continues online as students connect, research, and plan in support of the Museum’s mission. We reached out to this team to learn more about their current inspiration at this time. We asked: What is a work...

“Art is between us”: Mania Akbari on capturing poetry, collaboration, and transformation on film [Audio]

Bynublockmuseum May 13, 2020 0 Comments
At age 30, Iranian filmmaker Mania Akbari was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. A Moon For My Father (2019), an essay film made in collaboration with her partner, the British sculptor Douglas White, positions Akbari’s illness within layers of personal and national history. Rich in texture and astonishingly intimate, Akbari’s film presents memory as a poetic,...

The Block Docent Diaries: Objects with Energy

Bynublockmuseum May 11, 2020 0 Comments
The Block Museum Student Docent Program is made up of students from across Northwestern University that serve as the museum’s tour guides and ambassadors. In Spring 2020, the program continues online as students connect, research, and plan in support of the Museum’s mission. We reached out to this team to learn more about their current inspiration at this time. We asked: What object in your...

Collection Spotlight: Day and Night, Sarah Sze

Bynublockmuseum May 8, 2020 0 Comments
Title: Day and NightArtist: Sarah SzeNationality: Chinese-American, born 1969Dimensions: 37 1/4 in x 71 1/4 inDate: 2003Medium: Offset color lithograph and screenprint, diptychCredit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, purchase funds provided by Chris and William Robb, Hollis Clayson, Diane Dawson, Kay Deaux, Sally Dumas, Emily Forsgren, Susan Fuller, Steven Gavin and...

The Block Docent Diaries: Finding Inspiration

Bynublockmuseum May 4, 2020 0 Comments
The Block Museum Student Docent Program is made up of students from across Northwestern University that serve as the museum’s tour guides and ambassadors. In Spring 2020, the program continues online as students connect, research, and plan in support of the Museum's mission. We reached out to this team to learn more about their current inspiration at this time. We asked What art, music, or...

“Caravans of Gold” exhibition publication receives 2020 Curatorial Award for Excellence

Bynublockmuseum April 29, 2020 0 Comments
In April 2020 the Association of Art Museum Curators announced the Block Museum exhibition publication Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa as a recipient of the 2020 Award for Excellence. The annual, peer-juried award recognizes curators from around the country for groundbreaking projects that have advanced new methodologies,...

Checking in On…Lois Biggs, Tour Coordinator

Bynublockmuseum April 27, 2020 0 Comments
During Spring 2020 the Block Museum staff and students continue to connect online and advance the Museum’s teaching and learning mission. This week, we check in on student worker Lois Biggs, who serves as our Tour Coordinator. In addition to being indispensable at The Block, Lois is senior in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, double majoring in art history and comparative...