William Blake recognized artmaking as a powerful tool to address the pressing social issues of his time. In this spirit, the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University invited guests to experience the exhibition “William Blake and the Age of Aquarius” and join Melissa Blount, Evanston-based artist and activist and creator of the Black Lives […]
The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is pleased to announce the hiring of Michael Metzger as Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts. A curator, writer, and educator, Metzger is joining the Block from Stanford University, where he is completing his Ph.D. study in the Department of Art and Art History. The Block’s Associate Director […]
Letter From the Director, March 2018 For our campus community and the many publics we serve, the Block is a space for examining assumptions, reframing questions and bridging perspectives. We believe deeply in the capacity of art encounters to catalyze thinking about what is at stake for us in our lives. What is important if […]
Exhibition opens April 14 at Block Museum and continues through Aug. 5 Who is responsible for the meaning of an advertisement? How do ads reflect society’s hopes and dreams at a moment in time, as well as popular ideas about race, gender, and class? Renowned conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas (b.1976) has built his career […]
Inspired by the work of William Blake, poets Ed Roberson, Reginald Gibbons, Rachel Jamison Webster, and Parneshia Jones joined Tristram Wolff, English and Comp Lit professor for a discussion and expanded reading on February 28, 2018. Wolff addressed the theme of the garden in Blake’s poems, followed by readings by the assembled poets from Blake’s poetry and the poets’ own work. Blake’s […]
Artist and writer Jen Bervin embraces subjects as wide-ranging as the Mississippi River, Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and the history of silk, weaving, and nanotechnology. On February 21, 2018 the artist, Jeanne Dunning, Art Theory & Practice professor, and Susy Bielak, Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director of Engagement/Curator of Public Practice, sat down for a conversation about Bervin’s work. In […]
On Tuesday, February 20th Twelve student vocalists from the Bienen School of Music performed Mad Song, a work by Chicago composer, flutist and vocalist Janice Misurell-Mitchell that translates the text and imagery of a William Blake’s poem by the same name into a sonic experience. The performance was preceded by a discussion by Misurell-Mitchell and […]
Title: Patti Smith Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) Nationality: American Date: 1986 Medium: Gelatin Silver print Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Jeffrey H. Loria, 2015.7.3 Singer and poet Patti Smith was one of Robert Mapplethorpe’s earliest and most frequent photographic subjects, and over two decades he took many photographs of her. They […]
The Block Museum and Kaplan Institute host artist-in-residence throughout winter quarter When artist Jen Bervin first visited Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art in spring 2017, she launched into a two-day whirlwind tour, taking part in more than 20 conversations with faculty and students that spanned the fields of engineering, nanotechnology, computer science, poetry and art. As […]
Though the art and artifacts on display in the exhibition “Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt” are almost 2000 years old, the exhibition is also home to some of the worlds newest digital technology. Students in a fall 2017 course taught by professors Marc Walton and Taco Terpstra used X-ray Computed Tomography […]