The publication Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio has received a 2019 Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC). Corinne Granof, The Block’s curator of academic programs and co-editor of Up is Down, attended the 2019 AAMC conference and accepted the award. Co-editor Amy Beste, […]
Internationally acclaimed artist and MacArthur Fellow Fred Wilson addressed audiences at The Block on April 16, 2019. In his talk, Wilson shared insights into his work Afro Kismet— resonant with themes of migration and history explored in the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. Throughout his career, […]
Title: Happiness (finally) after 35,000 years of civilization Artist: Paul Chan Nationality: American, born Hong Kong, 1973 Date: 1999-2003 Medium: Single-channel digital video on mini-PC, color, with sound, 17:20 min Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Peter Norton, 2016.4.8a A writer, activist, and artist celebrated for efforts in video, sculpture, performance and installation, Paul […]
On April 4, a group curated by D. Soyini Madison, Professor of Performance Studies, responded to Isaac Julien’s The Leopard and to our current moment through dance and movement. Audiences gathered in The Block galleries to witness the performance, which transpired in tandem with a screening of Julien’s work. Beginning with a short reading of original verse, the […]
This past October writer, curator, and graphic designer Ellen Lupton shared her perspective on design at the Goldsholl studio, the focus of the 2018 Block exhibition Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio. In the 1950s and ’60s, the Goldsholl design firm’s creative experiments with light and media found […]
As explored in the Block Museum 2019 exhibitions Caravans of Gold and The Leopard (Western Union Small Boats), nations around the world have long been shaped by migration. On February 28, 2019 the museum hosted a panel to examine urgent issues of migration taking place in the US, Chicago, and Evanston. Drawing upon a range of perspectives, the […]
Title: Frau an der Wiege Artist: Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) Nationality: German Date: 1897 Medium: Etching Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Jack Brown, 1993.47 Käthe Kollwitz’s Frau an der Wiege (Woman at the Crib) is a powerful portrayal of the precarious living conditions of the working class in 19th-century Germany. The etching shows a woman positioned […]
In the four years before the Roe v. Wade ruling made abortion legal in the United States, a clandestine organization of Chicago women offered low-cost, safe and confidential services to over 11,000 women—the Jane Collective. The film “Jane: An Abortion Service” offers an invaluable oral history, through the words of women who founded, operated, and […]
Block Museum hosts archaeologists working in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria, including panel & symposium The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will host a week-long gathering of six archaeologists from Mali, Morocco, the U.K. and the U.S., working at the cutting-edge of research on medieval Africa. The unprecedented gathering April 22 to 26 will […]
Internationally acclaimed artist and Art, Theory, and Practice faculty member Michael Rakowitz explores culture as it is embodied in artifacts. In projects ranging from a recreation of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon to selling dates in an NYC storefront, he has used both food and material fragments to recreate and reimagine cultural and personal […]