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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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 […]
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In Winter 2021 the Block Museum hosted a discussion between UK filmmaker Onyeka Igwe and Professor Bimbola Akinbola of the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. The conversation was presented as part of the Block Cinema program The Loose Ends of Empire: Unforgetting Colonialism a screening of experimental film and audio-visual works from the […]
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This groundbreaking drama Majdhar (1984) was among the first to bring the inner lives and struggles of South Asian communities to popular audiences in the UK. On January 28, 2021 Block Cinema was proud to host a screening of the film followed by a discussion with Ahmed Alauddin Jamal, the co-founder of the legendary Retake […]
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In October 2018, the Block Museum hosted a panel discussion with Chicago artists committed to prison reform and to using art as a mechanism for change. In recognition of the 2020-2021 One Book One Northwestern reading selection Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption we are happy to make audio and transcript of this […]
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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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In the four years before the Roe v. Wade ruling made abortion legal in the United States, a clandestine organization of Chicago women offered low-cost, safe and confidential services to over 11,000 women—the Jane Collective. The film “Jane: An Abortion Service” offers an invaluable oral history, through the words of women who founded, operated, and […]
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In conjunction with the Block Museum of Art’s Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio, an exhibition exploring the groundbreaking Chicago design firm that brought Bauhaus aesthetics to the American public through innovative explorations with light and film, curators Amy Beste and Corinne Granof sat down for conversation with artist […]
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In July 2018 the Block Museum hosted “Films and Videos by David Wojnarowicz and Collaborators” a screening and conversation presented in partnership with Iceberg Projects in conjunction with the exhibition David Wojnarowicz: Flesh of My Flesh. (June 23 – August 4, 2018) David Wojnarowicz is arguably one of the most important artists to emerge from the New York art […]
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Over 350 guests joined artist Hank Willis Thomas at the Block Museum on April 14, 2018 for a talk on his politically charged work and the Block Museum exhibition Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded. The exhibition brings together selections from two bodies of work: Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008 and Unbranded: A Century of White […]
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