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 Arts to bring the exhibition to Alabama. Montgomery is a city with a deep civil rights history that currently acts as a national and international forum on racial injustice. Since the 1980s, the MMFA has offered exhibitions and programs meant to push in the direction of diversity and inclusion. Partnerships with various community groups and leaders along with planned actions allow the MMFA to engage with the community at its heart and to have them engage more fully in the life of the Museum. The exhibition will connect with the work of Montgomery’s landmark institutions such as Martin Luther King’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which memorializes thousands of lynchings that occurred across the U.S.

The Block is grateful for the collaboration and care of our partners at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, including director Angie Dodson and curator Jennifer Jankauskas, to Steven Reed, Mayor of Montgomery for his civic support of the project, to the Terra Foundation of American Art to enable this national connection; and to the community of Montgomery for engaging with us in this challenging conversation.

The opening day at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts included a discussion between Rhonda Sewell, Toledo Museum of Art’s first director of belonging & community engagement, and Janet Dees, the Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum curator of modern and contemporary art at The Block Museum of Art and curator of A Site of Struggle. The pair discussed the process behind the exhibition and the new resonance this exhibition takes on in a city with such a rich history in the battle for African American civil rights in the United States.

Watch the MMFA Opening Discussion

The opening day at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts included a discussion between Rhonda Sewell, Toledo Museum of Art’s first director of belonging & community engagement, and Janet Dees, the Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum curator of modern and contemporary art at The Block Museum of Art and curator of A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence. The pair discussed the process behind the exhibition and its themes.