Collection News

Works by LaToya Ruby Frazier and An-My Lê acquired through The Block’s Collection Council

The Block Museum is excited to announce the purchase of three works for its permanent collection, acquired through its newly formed Collection Council. These acquisitions—which include two works by photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier and one work by photographer An-My Lê—represent the museum’s commitment to acquiring works that activate teaching, learning, and research using The Block’s […]

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Collection News, Student Associates

Docent team selects Leonard Suryajaya’s Quarantine Blues as 2021 Block Museum Student Acquisition

The Block is proud to announce that its undergraduate Student Docent team has made the formal recommendation to Block Museum director Lisa Corrin for the acquisition of Quarantine Blues (2020), a photograph by Chicago-based artist Leonard Suryajaya from his series of the same name. The recommendation comes after an intensive 7-week selection process by the […]

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Collection Spotlight

Collection Spotlight: Day and Night, Sarah Sze

Title: Day and Night Artist: Sarah Sze Nationality: Chinese-American, born 1969 Dimensions: 37 1/4 in x 71 1/4 in Date: 2003 Medium: Offset color lithograph and screenprint, diptych Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, purchase funds provided by Chris and William Robb, Hollis Clayson, Diane Dawson, Kay Deaux, Sally Dumas, Emily […]

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Collection Spotlight

Collection Spotlight: Unidentified Man on Bike, Andy Warhol

Title: Unidentified Man on Bike Artist: Andy Warhol Nationality: American, 1928–87 Date: ca. 1980 Medium: gelatin silver print Credit: Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2008.1.128. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Unidentified Man on a Bike was donated to The Block Museum as part of the Andy Warhol […]

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Collection Spotlight

Collection Spotlight: Skeeter, Catherine Opie

Title: Skeeter Artist: Catherine Opie (American, born 1961) Date: 1993 Medium: Chromogenic print Edition: 5 of 8 Dimensions: 40 x 30 in. Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Armyan Bernstein and Christine Meleo Bernstein, 2018.9. Reproduced with permission from the artist. Skeeter; Sunflowers; Sunrise “A lot of my friends […]

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Collection News

Federico Solmi’s surreal, satirical universe comes to The Block Museum collection

Ambitious media installation The Great Farce donated in recognition of museum’s upcoming anniversary Past and present, history and amusement, reality and spectacle are conflated and distorted in Federico Solmi’s monumental media work, The Great Farce (2017), recently acquired by Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art. The Block received the nine-channel, limited-edition work as a gift […]

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Programs & Events

Jen Bervin Talks Poetry, Material, and Metaphor [Video]

Artist and writer Jen Bervin embraces subjects as wide-ranging as the Mississippi River, Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and the history of silk, weaving, and nanotechnology. On February 21, 2018  the artist, Jeanne Dunning, Art Theory & Practice professor, and Susy Bielak, Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director of Engagement/Curator of Public Practice, sat down for a conversation about Bervin’s work. In […]

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Collection Spotlight

Collection Spotlight: Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe

Title: Patti Smith Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) Nationality: American Date: 1986 Medium: Gelatin Silver print Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Jeffrey H. Loria, 2015.7.3   Singer and poet Patti Smith was one of Robert Mapplethorpe’s earliest and most frequent photographic subjects, and over two decades he took many photographs of her. They […]

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