Who gets in? Who decides? In recent years, questions about accessibility, representation, and inclusion have become central to an ongoing reexamination of the collecting practices and power structures of museums and the art world. Artists, curators, writers, and activists have emphasized the narrow framework of Western art history—a discipline dominated by white Euro-American institutions and […]
Read more“This battle has been fought with images” Sarah Maza, Andrea Carlson, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and Chris Pappan on art and history
Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with The Block’s Collection considers our constantly changing understanding of the past through the lens of artistic practice. On September 29, 2021 the Block Museum hosed a keynote conversation with exhibition artists Andrea Carlson, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and Chris Pappan who discussed how artists, artworks, and museums shape and challenge […]
Read moreReverse Image: Cait DiMartino on Prints by Enrique Chagoya and Murry DePillars
Murry DePillars was a Chicago artist prominent in the city’s Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and the artist organization AfriCobra. Enrique Chagoya is a California-based artist raised in Mexico City who addresses in both artwork and activism the cultural and political clash between the U.S. and Latin America and U.S. foreign policy. Though to […]
Read more“What We Leave Behind”: The women of Grace House & Beyondmedia on personal narrative beyond the prison system
In Winter 2021 The Block was honored to present Voices Across Time: Sharing Women’s Experiences of Re-entry, a special program bringing together organizers from Beyondmedia Education with current and former members of Grace House, a residential program for women exiting the Illinois prison system. This screening and discussion centered on women’s experiences of re-entry after […]
Read moreMercy in the Museum: Collection Tours [Video]
Throughout Fall 2020 the Block Museum welcomed online audiences to a special series of shared conversations, focusing on artworks from the collection that explore ideas of justice, race, and equity. [View our Just Mercy Project] These discussion-based lunchtime tours were led by Block staff and inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and […]
Read more“Reconsidering who we serve, how we serve”: Museum directors talk responsibility and action [Video]
What is the role of art museums in this moment nationally and globally as we navigate a pandemic, manage economic upheaval, and grapple with racial injustice? How can museums best activate their public platforms, collections, and programs and strengthen community connections to become new spaces for dialogue, reflection, action, and impact that extend beyond their […]
Read more“The Picture Is the Window”: Lynn Gumpert and Lisa Corrin on Abby Grey and intrepid art collecting [Audio]
Consisting of more than 700 artworks, the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art at New York University comprises the largest institutional holdings of Iranian, Turkish and Indian modern art in any American university museum. This unparalleled historical resource was amassed by Abby Weed Grey (1902-1983), a self-described “dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner” from St. Paul, […]
Read more“Constantly in Translation”: Artists Vicko Alvarez Vega, Nicole Marroquin, and Diana Solís on identity, activism, and Pop [Video]
On October 30, 2019 the Block hosted an in-depth discussion with Chicago artists Vicko Alvarez Vega, Nicole Marroquin and Diana Solís. Convened and moderated by Sarita Hernández of the National Museum of Mexican Art the panel discussed how their practices are rooted in issues of identity and community, and how ideas and approaches from the exhibition Pop América remain relevant in our contemporary moment
Read moreThe Block launches CaravansofGold.org to support teaching and learning on medieval Africa
The Block Museum of Art announces the launch of Caravansofgold.org, a companion site to museum’s 2019 exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. The exhibition is currently on view at Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum and will travel to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in 2020. Caravans of […]
Read moreWattz Up! Yollocalli’s Pop Up Youth Radio broadcasts from The Block Museum
On September 28, 2019 members of Pop Up Youth Radio, a project of Yollocalli Arts Reach, transformed The Block Museum lobby into an on-air studio, broadcasting live from the Pop America 1965-1975 exhibition opening. Wattz Up! is a weekly radio show on WLPN 105.5 FM Lumpen Radio. Broadcast live from Studio Y in Little Village, Chicago on Saturdays from […]
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