“The playtime in design is the most joyful experience––the wasted moments in scribbles, dribbles, and scratches that formulate vague thoughts into ideas and dreams into action.” – Morton Goldsholl As part of the opening celebration of the Block Museum exhibition, Up Is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio artists of all ages […]
Renowned Chicago painter and educator Ed Paschke (1939–2004) often began his classes with the assignment to “break a rule.” A bold innovator who enjoyed disrupting conventions, Paschke mentored students for over two and a half decades at Northwestern University, continually coaching them to think outside the box. His work and his teaching were devoted to […]
Local filmmaker and Northwestern professor Kyle Henry’s Rogers Park captures the life, diversity, and flavor of the northside Chicago neighborhood in its story of two couples as they attempt to keep their relationships afloat. Henry and screenwriter Carlos Treviño craft a film that is both universal in its characters’ raw and authentic emotional lives and […]
In March of 2018, the Block Museum and the Northwestern University Library joined together for a special workshop inviting participants to “Read With the Spine.” This two-day event used the site of the library to explore fundamental questions about human experience and the nature of books and libraries themselves, such as: What does it mean […]
Prior to Thomas Edison’s groundbreaking invention of sound recording and playback technology in 1877, the ephemerality of sound meant that it only existed in the moment of its creation. To “record” sound before this time meant it appeared as oral or written descriptions or musical scores. In 2008, Patrick Feaster, a researcher and educator […]
What does an image sound like? This is the question that Northwestern University students sought to answer in an experimental workshop earlier this month. Students in computer science, engineering, sound arts, and art theory and practice joined together for a day-long session with artist Dario Robleto and media historian Patrick Feaster to delve into the […]
Over 350 guests joined artist Hank Willis Thomas at the Block Museum on April 14, 2018 for a talk on his politically charged work and the Block Museum exhibition Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded. The exhibition brings together selections from two bodies of work: Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008 and Unbranded: A Century of White […]
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 […]
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 […]
On November 29, 2017, the Block Museum was honored to host a special conversation with four contemporary Native artists. Each of the women on the panel works within a collaborative artistic practice that unites artists, community, and audience. From to participatory dance and collective narratives, to asynchronous poetry and public interventions these artists upend the notion […]