The Block Museum is pleased to announce a significant gift of a work by artist Sam Gilliam (b. 1933), from the estate of Dawn Clark Netsch from the Collection of Walter A. Netsch and Dawn Clark Netsch. One (1970) is a quintessential example of Gilliam’s innovative “drape” paintings which the artist began making in the […]
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Art writer Lee Ann Norman profiled four Chicago-based curators in her July 2016 article Chicago Curators Are Expanding the Cultural Conversation from the Inside Out. Focusing on Yesomi Umolu of the Logan Center at the University of Chicago, independent gallerist Erin Gilbert, and Naomi Beckwith of the Museum of Contemporary Art as well as Block Museum curator Janet […]
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Born in Hong Kong, educated in Vancouver and Paris, and later based in New York City, Tseng Kwong Chi (1950–1990) produced a large body of witty, playful, performance-based photography that both captured the pivotal downtown Manhattan art and club scenes of the 1980s and reflected the increasingly globalized movement of people across nations and continents. […]
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When the Northwestern University Segal Visitor’s Center opened to the public, President Morton Schapiro praised the building as having “the most beautiful view in the world.” Standing as a stunning lakefront gateway to the Evanston campus, the center includes an auditorium with approximately 160 seats, meeting rooms, offices for admissions staff, and a two story reception […]
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In celebration of the Association of Art Museum Directors 100th birthday, leaders in the museum field sat down to answer some essential questions: “What is an art museum?” and “Who is an art museum for?”
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“He was a developer and a discoverer, so many of his ideas are relevant today, from project-oriented work, to discussion-led thinking, to the ephemeral; all of that is now commonplace. That is a central contribution of his work.” – Joachim Jäger, New York Times Saturday, June 4th Inflation of Otto Piene’s: Grand Rapids Carousel 9AM, Arts […]
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“Trisha Brown’s dances are shaped by dreams of levitation, by geometry, enigma, physics, by memory, mathematics and geography, by language. Her gestural imagery challenges perception of the moving body, making the impossible appear possible.” – Marianne Goldberg, Fifty Contemporary Choreographers Trisha Brown is among the most acclaimed choreographers to emerge from the postmodern era. She first came […]
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On April 8 and 9 an international group of curators, scholars and performers convened at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art for “Performed in the Present Tense,” a free two-day symposium considering the present field of performance art. Inspired by the Block Museum exhibition, “A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s,” participants examined […]
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Pioneering software innovator Peter Norton has donated 68 contemporary artworks from his personal collection to Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, a transformative gift that includes a wide variety of media from more than four dozen internationally known artists.
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Watch WTTW’s Chicago Tonight coverage of the exhibition Feast of Astonishments, broadcast January 26, 2016 “Being labeled “the topless cellist” was a mixed blessing for one American artist of the avant-garde. Charlotte Moorman’s occasional nudity in her performances attracted the curiosity of “The Tonight Show” and TV audiences. It also may have distracted from the […]
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