The breathtaking images produced by the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes are no ordinary snapshots. To produce these sublime cosmic vistas, astronomers filter raw data into colors and configurations that guide the viewer’s understanding, making creative decisions in the service of scientific communication. In this dialogue on “interstellar aesthetics,” artist Dario Robleto was joined by […]
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What are the tools that artists and scientists use to observe and measure the unknown? On February 4, 2023, more than 400 guests joined The Block Museum of Art and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University to celebrate the opening of the exhibition “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of […]
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The exhibitionTaking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s on view at The Block in Fall 2022 explores mid-20th-century abstract art from North Africa, West Asia, and the Arab diaspora—a vast geographic expanse that encompasses diverse cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. Comprising nearly 90 works by artists from countries including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, […]
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The Block’s Fall 2022 exhibition, Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s explores the wide range of nonfigurative art practices that flourished in the Arab world over the course of four decades. Looking critically at narratives of mid-20th-century abstraction, the exhibition rethinks art-historical canons and expands conversations around global modernisms. The exhibition keynote conversation on […]
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How can museum professionals advocate for museums to be a place for difficult conversations? In September 2022, Janet Dees, the Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum curator of modern and contemporary art at the Block Museum joined colleagues Angie Dodson, director of Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Ashley Rogers, Director of Museum Operations for the Whitney […]
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Originating at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100 + year period. In conjunction with this exhibition, a national group of curators, educators, and scholars convened […]
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The NAACP’s 1935 exhibition, “An Art Commentary on Lynching,” and its use in anti-lynching activism represents a critical but often overlooked moment in American art history. In March 2022, The Block Museum hosted a special conversation about this historical exhibition, the intersection of art and activism, and connections to A Site of Struggle and our community today. […]
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How has art been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence within the United States? Originating at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, the exhbition A Site of Struggle explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100+ year period. The […]
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The multidimensional work of artist Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) employs video, photography, music, and poetry as different pathways approaching Indigenous experience. In his two-channel video installation, Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer (2019) – on view in Fall 2021 alongside Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with The Block’s Collection – image, sound, and text […]
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As part of the Block Museum’s Student Acquisition initiative, Northwestern students in the 2020-2021 Block Museum Student Associates program selected artist Leonard Suryajaya’s Quarantine Blues (2020) for the museum’s collection. Suryajaya’s work explores complex intersections of intimacy, community and family, and how the “everyday is layered with histories, meanings, and potential.” In October 2021, Suryajaya joined the […]
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