18 international artists and collectives look at the challenges of climate change in touring exhibition. In 2006, a major earthquake rocked the island of Java causing massive destruction and loss of life. The disaster inspired Indonesian artist Arahmaiani to work with local students, asking what was needed in their community in the face of such […]
Read more
The Block Museum of Art presents the first major U.S. exhibition of decade-long “Facing the Camera” project When Rosalie Favell, a photo-based Métis artist from Canada, picked up her camera to document fellow Indigenous artists at a residency in 2008, she did not expect to begin a major international project. But by 2018, her “Facing […]
Read more
Ashleigh Deosaran, a Northwestern doctoral student in Art History and curator of The Block Museum’s The Living Image of Sound: Notes on Jazz and Protest at Northwestern exhibit knew early on that Ayé Aton’s painting Untitled (1976) would be a keystone of the exhibition. The piece came to The Block on loan from the collection […]
Read more
In Spring 2023 The Block opened The Living Image of Sound: Notes on Jazz and Protest at Northwestern a concise exhibition exploring the intersections of visual art, music, and student-led social justice movements during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition features artwork and ephemera related to the trailblazing poet and musician Sun Ra and […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
Northwestern’s Block Museum and McCormick School of Engineering jointly present The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto (January 26 – July 9, 2023) • Exhibition result of multi-year collaboration between Northwestern Engineering and Block Museum • Artist’s exhibition culmination of ten years of work – the result of exchange and […]
Read more
The Block Museum Student Associates (BMSA) work together to exercise close-looking skills and bring their experience and curiosity to bear on understanding works of art. Before executing research on the works in the exhibition Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, the group challenged themselves to write down their first impressions, interests, and inquiries […]
Read more
The Block Museum exhibition A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence concluded its tour on November 6, 2022, closing its run at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama. To mark the conclusion of this project we are honored to share an archive reflecting just a portion of the exhibition comments […]
Read more
The Block is currently forming the exhibition Woven Being: Indigenous Art in Chicagoland (working title) through Indigenous curatorial methodologies that prioritize collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue with an expanding, intergenerational community of Indigenous knowledge sharers and non-Indigenous allies. The Block’s Lois Biggs, (Cherokee Nation and White Earth Ojibwe) Terra Foundation Curatorial Research Fellow, shares a personal account […]
Read more
The average museum visitor spends less than 30 seconds looking at a work of art. It usually takes us far less than that to draw conclusions about what we see; the human brain seems to perform this work automatically and instantaneously. How can we slow down our looking habits to better understand the process of […]
Read more