The ground-breaking exhibition Pop América draws attention to Latin American and US Latino/a artists who turned the “Pop” of Pop art into a verb by using familiar images of modern life—including mass media, fashion, food, and advertising—to make forceful interventions into art and society. On October 2, 2019 The Block Museum welcomed Esther Gabara, curator of Pop América, […]
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The exhibition Pop America, 1965-1975 on view at The Block Museum of Art from September 21, 2019 to December 8, 2019 is is the first exhibition to unify Latin American and Latinx expressions of Pop and explore how artists working across the hemisphere embraced its bold and colorful imagery, references to mass culture, and representations of everyday […]
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Gold is one of the rarest and most malleable minerals, qualities that have contributed to its enduring value across time and place. Gold has been shaped by artists; its extraction has altered landscapes, and its discovery has raised nations. The allure of gold is entwined with culture and economies, politics and religion, power and value. […]
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Artist Dario Robleto returned to Evanston this spring to continue his ongoing collaboration as Northwestern’s inaugural Artist-at-Large, hosted by the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and The Block Museum of Art. The Artist-at-Large Program brings contemporary artists to campus for in-depth exchanges with faculty and students; the Program joins other activities organized by […]
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Internationally acclaimed artist and MacArthur Fellow Fred Wilson addressed audiences at The Block on April 16, 2019. In his talk, Wilson shared insights into his work Afro Kismet— resonant with themes of migration and history explored in the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. Throughout his career, […]
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This past October writer, curator, and graphic designer Ellen Lupton shared her perspective on design at the Goldsholl studio, the focus of the 2018 Block exhibition Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio. In the 1950s and ’60s, the Goldsholl design firm’s creative experiments with light and media found […]
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As explored in the Block Museum 2019 exhibitions Caravans of Gold and The Leopard (Western Union Small Boats), nations around the world have long been shaped by migration. On February 28, 2019 the museum hosted a panel to examine urgent issues of migration taking place in the US, Chicago, and Evanston. Drawing upon a range of perspectives, the […]
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Internationally acclaimed artist and Art, Theory, and Practice faculty member Michael Rakowitz explores culture as it is embodied in artifacts. In projects ranging from a recreation of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon to selling dates in an NYC storefront, he has used both food and material fragments to recreate and reimagine cultural and personal […]
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The Block Museum of Art is thrilled to partner with Northwestern’s Program of African Studies (PAS) on the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time. A particular focus of the partnership has been the creation of an education program to accompany the curriculum. Amy Settergren, Outreach Coordinator of the Program of African Studies discusses the planning: […]
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Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection, Olio (2016), presents the sweat and story behind America’s blues, work songs, and church hymns. Part fact, part fiction, Jess’s much anticipated second book weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers. Olio is an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes […]
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