The average museum visitor spends less than 30 seconds looking at a work of art. It usually takes us far less than that to draw conclusions about what we see; the human brain seems to perform this work automatically and instantaneously. How can we slow down our looking habits to better understand the process of […]
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Early in 2022 The Block welcomed Isabella Ko (WCAS BA ’20) back to The Block as our Engagement Coordinator. We were thrilled to work with Isabella in a new professional capacity, after her contributions to the museum as an intern and a docent during her time as a Northwestern undergraduate. We sat down with her […]
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How do academic art museums support cross-disciplinary teaching and learning, in and outside of the classroom, and with communities on and off campus? This was the question on the table during a two-day engagement between the Block Museum and students of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. On Thursday and Friday, September 8 and 9, 2022, […]
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What does climate change actually look and feel like? From forest fires in the American West and desertification in northern China to climate migration in coastal Louisiana and Latin America, the ongoing climate emergency is a global problem that demands radically new, collaborative modes of scholarship and creativity. For the past few years Michael Metzger, the […]
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In the years leading up to the 2019 exhibition Caravans of Gold, Block Museum staff formed relationships with colleagues based at partner institutions in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria. Chief among our collaborators was Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the federal government agency which manages the collection, documentation, conservation, and presentation of Nigerian […]
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Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s on view at The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University September 22 – December 4, 2022 From September 22 – December 4, 2022 the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will present Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s. The exhibition explores mid-20th-century abstract art […]
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On Saturday, August 13, 2022 the Block Museum celebrated the opening of “A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence” at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery Alabama, where the exhibition will be on view through November 6, 2022. The Block has been honored to work with the Montgomery Museum of Fine […]
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“The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories.” – Epilogue, How […]
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On July 14 the Block Museum’s Erin Northington, The Block’s Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director, Campus and Community Education and Engagement, was announced as a recipient of the 2022 Northwestern Student Affairs Campus Partner Award. Each year, Northwestern’s Student Affairs recognizes individual staff members, departments, or groups who have done outstanding work in the […]
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Artist: Edward Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879‒1973)Title: Models in Gowns by Madeleine Vionnet, for VogueDate: 1930Medium: Gelaton silver printDimensions: 10 x 8 inCredit line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Richard and Jackie Hollander in memory of Ellyn Lee Hollander, 2019.29.27 Models in Gowns by Madeleine Vionnet is an example of Edward Steichen’s modern […]
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