On October 17, 2025, The Block Museum welcomed art historian and Stanford University professor Alexander Nemerov for an evening keynote reflecting on Helen Frankenthaler’s life and work. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper, the program invited audiences to consider what it means to be present with a work of art, both for its maker and for its viewers.
Opening the evening, Lisa Corrin, the Ellen Philips Katz Executive Director of The Block Museum, framed the talk within the museum’s teaching and engagement mission. She drew connections between the exhibition and The Block’s initiatives such as The Living Room and Looking 101, which encourage sustained, silent engagement with a single work of art.
“None of these actions, being solitary, remaining silent, looking at a work of art for an extended period, are easy for many of us,” Corrin noted. “But in doing so, students find their way back to themselves and to the power of art.”
Corrin linked this act of close attention to the questions that animate Nemerov’s scholarship. Introducing his book Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York, she described how his writing “clears away the clichés” surrounding Frankenthaler, inviting readers to encounter her work on its own terms and to sense what was at stake for the artist in moments of creative risk.
When Nemerov took the stage, he began with a quiet provocation:
“I want to think about something that’s out of fashion, and yet is present in our lives, which you could call the religion of art. What is the place of a work of art in our lives now? I consider Helen Frankenthaler’s works exemplary in this regard. They have, in their essence, a kind of devotion, a belief in what an artwork can be and do, even in the absence of certainty.”
Reflecting on Divertimento and the lithographic proofs featured in Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding, Nemerov described Frankenthaler’s printmaking as both experiment and act of faith:
“Each test print, each notation, carries the physical trace of her uncertainty, the smudge, the adjustment, the gesture that says, this might not work, but I have to try. There’s something beautiful in that, a willingness to enter the unknown, to fail, and to keep going until something true emerges.”
Speaking from the stage of The Block’s auditorium, Nemerov also turned to the shared experience of seeing art in a museum.
“It’s not just about Helen or her prints,” he said. “It’s about us, standing here, in this museum, trying to be present. To be in a place like The Block is to participate in a kind of communion. You come to be quiet for a while, to let the work speak, and in doing that, you might find something that touches you for real.”
Nemerov’s talk brought together art, reflection, and the act of looking. His remarks emphasized how Frankenthaler’s practice—and the museum setting itself—invite patience, attention, and openness to discovery.
Watch the Keynote
Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper is curated by Stephanie S.E. Lee, 2024–25 Art History Graduate Fellow and Corinne Granof, Academic Curator, at The Block Museum of Art. Generous support for the exhibition was provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. The exhibition is supported in part by The Alumnae of Northwestern University. The Graduate Fellow is generously supported by The Graduate School (TGS), Northwestern University. This program was generously supported by a grant from The Alumnae of Northwestern University.
