On February 16, 2019 the Art Institute of Chicago announced the results of significant new research on five terracotta sculptures–so named Bankoni after a village in present-day Mali where they were found. The objects date from between the 12th and 15th centuries. This places them “among the oldest surviving sculptures from sub-Saharan Africa and among […]
In September 2018 the Block Museum welcomed Sarah Estrela as a 2018-2019 graduate fellow. Block Museum Graduate Fellowships are offered to two graduate students annually, one from Art History and one from any department within the Graduate School. Graduate Fellows are integral members of the museum staff and support projects through exhibition and collection research, curating, writing […]
The Block Museum of Art and Princeton University Press are pleased to announce the release of the exhibition publication Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, (Kathleen Bickford Berzock, ed.) Hardcover / 2019 / $65.00 / ISBN: 9780691182681 / 312 pp. / 9 x 11 / 192 color […]
In conjunction with the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, the Block Museum is pleased to partner with leaders from around the University. Galya Ben-Arieh is professor of instruction in political science. Her research centers on the rights and processes of refugee protection and the role of law in settlement and inclusion in host […]
The Block Museum of Art is thrilled to partner with Northwestern’s Program of African Studies (PAS) on the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time. A particular focus of the partnership has been the creation of an education program to accompany the curriculum. Amy Settergren, Outreach Coordinator of the Program of African Studies discusses the planning: […]
Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection, Olio (2016), presents the sweat and story behind America’s blues, work songs, and church hymns. Part fact, part fiction, Jess’s much anticipated second book weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers. Olio is an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes […]
The Block Museum of Art is pleased to announce that Janet Dees, The Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art has received a Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Warhol Foundation. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts will award a total of $413,500 in Fall 2018 Curatorial Research Fellowships. Fellows will […]
The Block Museum of Art presents Isaac Julien’s The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) through April 14 The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is pleased to announce its presentation of artist Isaac Julien’s groundbreaking 2007 video installation The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) running January 26 through April 14, 2019. The renowned work presents […]
Saturday’s frozen temperatures and falling snow didn’t deter an estimated 2,500 visitors from attending the January 26, 2019 opening day celebration of “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa,” making it the biggest opening day turnout to date for Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art. The groundbreaking exhibition […]
The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University invites audiences to travel to a time when West African gold fueled expansive trade and drove the movement of people, culture, and beliefs. Opening Jan. 26, 2019, “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa” is the first major exhibition to […]