Telling stories in a digital environment — for desktop/laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones — requires storytellers to gather information differently and to offer users access to how and where those stories are consumed. In Spring 2018, Northwestern students in the Medill School of Journalism turned their storytelling lens on the Block Museum of Art exhibition […]
How do representations of women of color serve to “brand” TV networks and film studios? In May, 2018 Professors Aymar Jean Christian and Miriam Petty screened clips of recent critically acclaimed shows like Insecure and Queen Sugar and discussed how they fit into strategies of major media brands. The conversation was presented by the […]
The Middle East and North African Studies Program and Block Museum of Art joined together in May 2018 to present three days of series of screenings and discussions with one of Iran’s leading filmmakers, Bahman Ghobadi. The series, titled Life on the Border: The Cinema of Bahman Ghobadi, was made possible by Tamilla Ghodsi (WCAS ‘91) […]
Visitors to the Block Museum exhibition “Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt” have been transported not only by the ancient objects on display but also by an ambient exhibition audio track that heightens the meditative experience in the gallery. The exhibition audio is the result of the course “Museum Sound Design” taught by Stephan […]
The Block Museum was thrilled to serve as one of many partners for the 2017 Northwestern University Black Arts Initiative conference “Black Arts International: Temporalities and Territories (October 9-13). This week-long event focused on art and scholarship of the black diaspora around the world. Conference presenters considered notions of time, space, and place and the ways in […]
In the late 1960s, Blake’s words and ideas permeated the culture broadly and profoundly. Some musicians, such as Jim Morrison of The Doors, were inspired by Blake’s poems and adapted his texts for their lyrics, while others conjured abstract themes in Blake, such as innocence and love, that were associated with the ethos of the […]
UCLA Professor of English and Comparative Literature Saree Makdisi joined the block Museum to discuss the historical parallels between Blake’s era and the 1960’s, examining how these concurrent histories are the result of profound changes in politics, economy, art, and society during their respective periods. From the lecture: The [Block Museum] exhibition is one of […]
Janet Dees, Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Grace Deveney, Curatorial Assistant, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Northwestern Ph.D. Candidate in Art History discussed Weems’s art and her exploration of universal human experiences through the black subject. From Opening Remarks by Susy Bielak, Block Museum Curator of Public […]
The 1960s was a time of political, social and cultural currents that are difficult to encapsulate. It was a time of love…and then some. In conjunction with the exhibition “William Blake and the Age of Aquarius” scholars from a range of disciplinary perspectives came together to focus on the moment of the 1960s in the […]
In Spring 2017, the Block was honored to host the book release event for the Northwestern University Press publication “Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden” Borrowing from Romare Bearden’s aesthetic palette and inspired by his Odysseus series, Bearden’s Odyssey gathers, for the first time, poems from thirty-five of the most revered African […]