The Block Museum of Art - Annual Report 2021-2022

2021–2022

ANNUAL REPORT

MISSION STATEMENT

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art enriches teaching, learning and research on the campuses of Northwestern University and in the communities of their surrounding regions by:

• PRESENTING art across time, cultures, and media;

• CONVENING interdisciplinary discussions in which art is a springboard for exploring issues and ideas;

• COLLECTING art that supports the Northwestern University curriculum.

VISION STATEMENT

To be a dynamic, imaginative, and innovative teaching and learning resource at Northwestern University through an artistic program that is a springboard for thought-provoking discussions relevant to the curriculum and to our lives today.

To inspire and develop a new generation of artists, scholars, and arts professionals by providing experiential learning opportunities bridging the classroom and the world beyond the campus.

To serve as a crossroad between campus and community, by creating an environment where all visitors feel welcome to participate.

Cover: Block Student Associates discuss the exhibition Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts

Below: Block Student Associates show their self-creations for photoshoot with Leonard Suryajaya

Block Associate Vitoria Monteiro de Carvalho Faria studies a print in study center

MESSAGE FROM THE

DIRECTOR

Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts?

This was the title of The Block’s 40th anniversary exhibition, celebrating the addition of 550 works of art to our collection, all encouraging us to think in some way about history. The title is also an expression of The Block’s distinct identity—at the center of who we are is our willingness, indeed our insistence, that we are a museum that asks questions of our institution, its role, and the values that inform it. Our current strategic plan states, “The Block is a space for examining assumptions, reframing questions, and bridging perspectives. We believe deeply in the capacity of art encounters to catalyze

have impact in the future?”

In positing these questions at the center of our work and our organizational culture, we invite our constituencies to reflect along with us. In short, we believe that self-questioning is our essential role as a museum. Inquiry leads us closer to our ideal: taking an active role in shaping a truly diverse, inclusive, and equitable society.

At the center of The Block’s work are partnerships: across our campus, with the communities surrounding Northwestern, and with colleagues in our field nationally and internationally. The care and intention put into the process of building and holding relationships reflect our core values.

Throughout the year, we stopped to ask: “How do we build and sustain relationships in order to have a meaningful impact both within and far beyond our walls?"

thinking about what is at stake for us in our lives.” As we execute this plan, we continually ask:

“How will the stories we tell highlight the ways some histories are present at the expense of others? How will a project help to build or to deepen relationships, between people, ideas, fields of inquiry, between one another? How will our work encourage reflection on our assumptions about the past and on how we wish to

These questions led to exciting milestones in our commitment to centering partnership as our path to meaning making:

• Sharing our exhibition, A Site of Struggle: American Artists Against Anti-Black Violence, with The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art in Alabama, a key center on the Civil Rights Trail, and collaborating with Evanston community advisors in developing programming and visitor experience for the exhibition.

“How do we build and sustain relationships in order to have a meaningful impact both within and far beyond our walls?"

• Facilitating clinical partnerships with the Northwestern University Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning for individuals diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, a cognitive disorder in which Northwestern has renowned expertise, using our collection to stimulate communication and build fellowship.

• Building upon our relationship with museum colleagues from Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments through a professional development summer residency hosted by The Block.

• With faculty colleagues and the generous support of the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, developing a Climate Crisis + Media Arts Working Group, a platform of exchange for makers, writers, thinkers, and activists from around the world whose work addresses the threat of climate catastrophe.

• Convening a national group of curators, educators, and scholars for field-wide conversations on the ethical responsibility of museums when exhibiting difficult histories.

For The Block team these deep engagements make visible what art can do—activate meaningful experiences and conversations that build connections between people and ideas. We look forward to welcoming you into this dynamic conversation in 2022-2023.

– Lisa Graziose Corrin

Ellen Philips Katz Director, The Block Museum of Art

BLOCK STAFF

Lisa Graziose Corrin

Ellen Philips Katz Director

Kathleen Bickford Berzock

Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs

Lois Taylor Biggs

Terra Foundation Curatorial Research Fellow / Interim Curatorial Assistant

Lindsay Bosch

Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications

Kristina Bottomley

Assistant Director of Collections and Exhibition Management, Senior Registrar

Lori Boyer Contract Registrar

Theresa Busch-Reed Development Program Assistant

Aaron Chatman Manager of Visitors Services

Janet Dees

Steven & Lisa Munster Tananbaum

Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art

Melanie Garcia Sympson Curatorial Associate

Corinne Granof

Academic Curator

Malia Haines-Stewart

Associate Film Programmer

Carl Kauffman

Assistant to the Registrar

Isabella Ko Engagement Coordinator

Mark Leonhart

Lead Preparator

Rebecca Lyon Head Projectionist

Emily Martin Curatorial Research Associate

Michael Metzger

Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts

Erin Northington

Susan & Stephen Wilson Associate Director, Campus and Community Education and Engagement

Rocio Olasimbo Visitors Services Officer

Jordan Poorman Cocker

2021-2024 Terra Foundation Guest Co-Curator of Indigenous Art

Elisa Quinlan Director of Development

Emmanuel Ramos-Barajas Media & Communications Coordinator

STUDENT ASSOCIATES

Ayinoluwa Abegunde

Chemical Engineering (2022)

Mayán Alvarado-Goldberg

Cognitive Science and Global Health (2024)

Solome Bezuneh

Communication Studies (2024)

Carolina Carret Legal Studies, Art History, and BIP (2023)

Vitoria Monteiro de Carvalho

Faria

Art History and Economics (2023)

STUDENT WORKERS

Gabrielle Butler

Communications and Administrative Aide — Global Health & Biology (2025)

Amelia Mylvaganam

Curatorial Research Aide — Radio/ Television/Film & Computer Science (2023)

Karan Gowda Biological Sciences, Global Health Studies and Classics (2022)

Chayda Harding History (2022)

Zeki Hirsch

Art History (2024)

Hyohee Kim Learning Sciences and Asian American Studies (2022)

Katy Kim

Art History and Political Science (2023)

Nozizwe Msipa Communication Studies (2024)

Jenna Robertson

Assistant to the Director

Essi Rönkkö

Associate Curator of Collections

América Salomón

Engagement Coordinator & Educator

Joe Scott

Collections & Exhibitions Coordinator

Hadia Shaikh

Assistant to the Director

Rita Shorts

Business Administrator

Dan Silverstein

Associate Director of Collections & Exhibitions Management

Jeff Smith

Senior Business Administrator

James Stauber

Visitors Services Office

Alisa Swindell

Curatorial Research Associate

Vincent Taylor

Visitors Services Associate

Kate Hadley Toftness

Senior Advancement Manager

Margeaux Rocco

Economic, Art Theory and Practice, and Art History (2023)

Bengi Rwabuhemba

Cultural Anthropology, Global Health (2023)

Joyce Wang

Economics and Data Science (2024)

Bobby Yalam

Social Policy and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (2024)

Hank Yang

Journalism and Political Science (2024)

GRAD FELLOWS & UNDERGRAD INTERNS

Sarah Dwider

Art History Graduate Fellow

æryka hollis o’neil Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow

Madie Giaconia

Undergraduate Curatorial Intern — Radio/TV/Film and Art History (2024)

2,125 TOUR VISITORS SCHEDULED GROUP VISITS TO GALLERIES

464 NU STUDENTS FROM 20 DEPARTMENTS & SCHOOLS

CAMPUS PARTNERS

Academic Residential Initiatives

Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities + Kaplan's CARE Dialogue

Black Arts Consortium

Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Climate

Crisis and Media Arts Working Group

Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Race Caste and Colorism Project

Campus Inclusion and Community

Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning (NUCASLL)

Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR)

Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy

Counseling and Psychology Services

Department of Art History

Department of Art, Theory and Practice

Department of Radio, Television, and Film

1,615 PROGRAM ATTENDEES

70 GUESTS INCLUDING ARTISTS, STUDENTS, SCHOLARS & LEADERS

483

STAFF & STUDENTS FROM 40 CAMPUS OFFICES

764 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, STAFF, & TEACHERS

Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Heath Equity Transformation

Feinberg School of Medicine, Palliative Medicine

MultiCultural Filmmakers Collective (student group)

Northwestern Prison Education Project

Northwestern University Archives

Office of Alumni Relations and Development

Office of Equity

Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion

Office of Undergraduate Research, Emerging Scholars Program

One Book One Northwestern

Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab for the `Promotion of Mental Health via Cinematic Arts

Program of African American Studies

Program of Comparative Literary Studies

Program of Documentary Media

Program of Gender & Sexuality Studies

Program of Performance Studies

Program of Screen Cultures

Program of Sound Arts and Industries

Program of Writing for Screen + Stage

Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators (SHAPE)

Social Justice Education

The Alumnae of Northwestern University

The Sexualities Project at Northwestern (SPAN)

Undergraduate Prison Education Partnership

Wildcat Welcome

Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts

Women's Center

A Long Walk Home Arts of Life

Nations

Video Festival

Flower Child Chicago La Guardia Community College American Sign Language (ASL) - English Interpretation Program (AEIP)

South Side Liberation Center

Students Organized Against Racism (S.O.A.R.)

The Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Youth and Opportunity United (Y.O.U.)

YWCA Evanston/North Shore Equity Institute

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Stuart H. Bohart

Aspen, CO, Appointed 2016, Board of Advisors Co-Chair, Partner and President, FORT Investment Management (WCAS’ 89, ’25P)

Cheryl Johnson-Odim

Evanston, IL, Appointed 2020, Board of Advisors Co-Chair, Provost Emerita, Dominican University (WCAS MA ’75,WCAS PhD’78)

Anu Aggarwal

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2015, Art Collector (SP KSM’97)

Mary Baglivo

New York, NY, Appointed 2017, Chief Marketing Officer, Pace University, (MDL’81)

Clare Bell

New York, NY, Appointed 2018, Director of Exhibitions, Guggenheim Museum (Parent ’22)

Daniel S. Berger

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2019, Medical Director, Northstar Healthcare, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, UIC

Christine Bernstein

Pacific Palisades, CA, Appointed 2016, Artist ('17, '23 P)

Julie Bernstein

New York, NY Appointed 2019, Art Collector and principal and founder of the interior and floral design firm Cambridge Bell Flowers ('24 P)

Priscilla Vail Caldwell

Brooklyn, NY, Appointed 2016, Curator and Advisor, PVC Fine Arts, LLC. (WCAS’85)

John Corbett

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2013, Gallerist, Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery, and professor (Comm PhD ’94)

Lisa G. Corrin

Evanston, IL, Ex-officio, The Ellen Philips Katz Director of The Block Museum

Nicole Druckman

Evanston, IL, Appointed 2013, Grant Writer (WCAS’92) (SP WCAS’93)

Kristin Peterson Edwards

Darien, CT, Appointed 2013, Owner, kpeArts; Community Volunteer (WCAS’92)

Kate Ezra

New Haven, CT, Retired, Yale University Art Gallery (TGS PhD ’83)

James Geier

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2013, Founder/ President, 555 International

Lynn Hauser

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2012, Retired Ophthalmologist (FSM’74 ’76 ’80) (SP FSM’75 ’79 ’80)

Steven P. Henry

New York, NY, Appointed 2018, Senior Director at Paula Cooper Gallery (WCAS’85)

Rashid Johnson

New York, NY, Appointed 2019, Artist

Ellen Philips Katz

New York, NY, Appointed 2005,Trustee, Northwestern University (WCAS’70)

Zeynep Keyman

Zürich and Istanbul, Appointed 2013, Art Collector, (Parent ’07, ’12)

James A. Klein

Riverwoods, IL, Appointed 2010, President, Acrobat Marketing Company (MDL ’68; ’69)

Dianne Loeb Seattle, WA, Appointed 2014, NU Regent; Community Volunteer (KSM’80) (SP KSM’81)

Angela Lustig

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2014, Artist; Former VP/Group Creative Director, Abelson Taylor (SP MDL’67 ’68)

R. Hugh Magill

Winnetka, IL, Appointed 2006, Senior Vice President, Northern Trust Company (SP Music ’86)

Kim Allen-Niesen

Los Angeles, CA, Appointed 2017, Art Collector (Parent ’16, ’19)

Craig Ponzio

Evergreen, CO, Appointed 2019, Retired CEO, Art Collector, (Parent '22)

Irwin Press

Chicago, IL, Appointed 2012, Retired Professor, Notre Dame University; and co-founder, Press Ganey Associates (WCAS ’59)

Richard M. Rieser, Jr. Northbrook, IL, Appointed 2013, Founder and former CEO, First Oak Brook Bancshares (SP SESP ’70)

Sandra L. Riggs

Lake Forest, IL, Appointed 2012, Board Member, The Alumnae of Northwestern University (Comm’65)

Christine O. Robb

Winnetka, IL, Appointed 2011, Past Chair, Board of Advisors. President and CEO, Artists’ Concepts, Inc. (WCAS '66, '93P) (SP WCAS '66, '93 P)

Selig D. Sacks

New York, NY, Appointed 2007, Managing Director and General Counsel, Ruton Capital (WCAS’69) (Parent ’17)

Jean E. Shedd

Evanston, IL, Retired NU Associate Provost for Budget, Facilities, and Analysis (KSM’97)

Diane Solomon

New York, NY, Appointed 2012, Art Collector (Parent ’10, ’15)

Lisa Tananbaum

New York, NY, Appointed 2015, Art Collector (WCAS’86)

Martha Tedeschi

Cambridge, MA, Appointed 2017, Director of the Harvard Art Museums (WCAS PhD’94)

Ken Thompson

Lincolnshire, IL, Appointed 2015, Director of Finance Transformation, PwC (WCAS ’91)

Kathleen Bickford Berzock leads Caravans of Gold tour at National Museum of African Art, Washington DC

PROGRAMS & CINEMA 2021-2022

Exhibition Keynote Conversation: Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts

Septembert 29

Outdoor screening of "The Reversal" (Offsite)

September 30

Online Curator Tour: Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts

September 30

Ephraim Asili: THE INHERITANCE (2020)Theatrical Screening

October 2

Retelling Resistance: CEDDO (1977) - 35mm Theatrical Screening

October 13

More at the Museum: Online Collection Talk

October 14

Art Talks! with Block Student Associates

October 15

Alumni Open House

October 15

Kelly Reichardt: FIRST COW (2020) - Theatrical Screening

October 16

Students Shape the Collection: Artist Talk with Leonard Suryajaya

October 20

Curator Tour: Who Says, Who Shows, What CountsCritical Portraits

October 21

Anthony Mann: THUNDER BAY (1953) on 35mm

October 23

Retelling Resistance: Ouveratures (2020)Theatrical Screening

October 27

Art Talks! with Block Student Associates

October 29

Penny Allen: PROPERTY (1978) - Theatrical Screening

October 30

Retelling Resistance: CUBAN FIGHT AGAINST THE DEMONS (1972) - Theatrical Screening

November 3

First Nations Film and Video Festival: Bawaadan Collective shorts

November 6

Sky Hopinka: Channeling Indigenous Histories

November 10

Curator Tour: Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts - Place & Memory

November 11

Art Talks! with Block Student Associates

November 12

Sky Hopinka: MALNI— TOWARDS THE OCEAN, TOWARDS THE SHORE (2020) - Theatrical

November 13

THIRZA CUTHAND: NDN SURVIVAL TRILOGY and other works

November 17

NORTH BY CURRENT with filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax -- Theatrical Screening

December 1

Online Curator Tour: Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts - Reframing the Past

December 2

Art Talks! with Block Student Associates

December 3

More at the Museum: Online Collection Talk

January 13

Opening Conversation: A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence [Online]

January 29

Place and Memory: Art Talks with Block Museum Student Associates

February 5

A Site of Struggle: American Art Against Anti-Black Violence – A Northwestern University Panel Discussion [Online]

February 8

The American Sector (2020) with filmmaker Courtney Stephens

February 10

Terra Femme (2021) live documentary-performance with Courtney Stephens

February 11

Exhibition Gallery Talk: A Site of Struggle with curator Janet

Dees

February 12

The Birdpeople (2004)

February 16

Artist Talk: Laylah Ali and Bethany Collins

February 17

Wilmington 10 – USA 10,000 (1979)

February 18

Michele D. Marincola: “Objects of Memory, Monuments to Trauma: Conservation and Preservation Issues”

February 23

Holding Binoculars, Pointing a Camera: A Cinema of Birdwatching

February 25

Place and Memory: Art Talks with Block Museum Student Associates

February 26

Kaplan Humanities scholars explore work by Shan Goshorn with Lois Biggs, Curatorial Assistant

Block Cinema Artist Talk: Crystal Z. Campbell -- Notes from Black Wall Street

March 2

Environments of Struggle: Crystal Z. Campbell and Christopher Harris

March 3

Exhibition Gallery Talk: A Site of Struggle with Leslie Harris and Miriam Petty

March 3

Flesh to Spirit: Materiality and Abstraction in Black Experimental Film

March 4

Art, Activism, and Contemporary Resonances of the 1935 NAACP exhibition “An Art Commentary on Lynching”

March 9

Place and Memory: Art Talks with Block Museum Student Associates

March 12

More at the Museum: Online Collection Talk

March 31

Night's End (2022) with filmmaker Jennifer Reeder

March 31

Writing with Fire (2021)

April 7

The State of Texas vs Melissa (2020) with NPEP & UPEP

April 8

A Conversation Series on Museum Practice: On Collaboration

April 13

SWEETGRASS (2009) with filmmaker Lucien CastaingTaylor

April 14

LEVIATHAN (2012) with filmmakers Lucien CastaingTaylor & Verena Paravel

April 15

A Conversation Series on Museum Practice: On Context

April 20

Workshop with Filmmaker Chase Joynt

April 20

NO ORDINARY MAN (2020) with filmmaker Chase Joynt

April 21

MAKE A DISTINCTION (2021) and FIELD RESISTANCE (2019) with filmmakers

April 22

Exhibition Gallery Talk: A Site of Struggle with YWCA

Evanston/Northshore's Equity Institute

April 23

A Conversation Series on Museum Practice: On Counterpoints

April 27

THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE (2013)

April 28

Block by Block: Short Films About Chicago

April 29

Opening Celebration: blossom soup, blossom salad

May 5

FAUNA + DEAR CHANTAL with Nicolás Pereda

May 4

On Racial Trauma and Healing: Prentis Hemphillt

May 11

CETTE MAISON (2022) with filmmaker Miryam Charles

May 12

MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (2021) with filmmaker Marion

Hill

May 13

To Render the Infinite: Visual Genealogies of Black Kinship

May 25

Teasers of Empire: 1930s Action-Adventure Trailers and the Spectacle of Imperialism

May 26

THE ISLAND OF ST MATTHEWS (2013) with Kevin Jerome Everson]

May 27

Behind the Wire: Documenting Kenya's Independence Movement through Digital Heritage

May 19

Opening Night of Like Water Through Stone: Celebrating Hamid Naficy

June 2

Acknowledgments 2022 (revelations of life)

June 15

Through the Looking Glass (Pt 1): NU MFA Doc Media Thesis Showcase

June 9

Through the Looking Glass (Pt 2): NU MFA Doc Media Thesis Showcase

June 10

Exhibition Gallery Talk: A Site of Struggle with Emily Martin

June 17

Online event: 5 Stages of Nile with Miles Reuben & Darryl DeAngelo Terrell

July 8 - July 15

Exhibition Gallery Talk: A Site of Struggle with Alisa Swindell

July 9

To Trouble, Escape & Exceed - Curated by the Concerned Black Image Makers

July 9

Spending Time: A Sculpture Walk and Talk with Artist Neil Goodman

August 4

Installation view of Sky Hopinka: Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer

EXHIBITION

— FALL 2021 WHO SAYS, WHO SHOWS, WHAT COUNTS: Thinking About History with The Block’s

Collection

Main & Alsdorf Galleries

September 22 - December 05, 2021

In 2020-2021 Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art celebrated its 40th anniversary. Leading up to this milestone, The Block introduced a major initiative to acquire works of art that encourage critical thinking about the representation of history. This initiative and The Block’s anniversary celebration culminated with Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinkingabout History with The Block’s Collection, an exhibition inviting visitors to think critically about how artists, artworks, and museums engage with narratives of the past.

Highlighting more than eighty modern and contemporary artworks recently acquired by The Block Museum of Art, the exhibition considered our constantly changing understanding of the past through the lens of artistic practice. It featured works by a wide-ranging selection of artists exploring the idea of history, such as Dawoud Bey, Shan Goshorn, the Guerrilla Girls, Louise Lawler, Kerry James Marshall, Catherine Opie, Walid Raad, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, and Kara Walker. Including voices from students, alumni, faculty, and staff, Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts invites visitors to reflect on the ways in which art can facilitate multidisciplinary connections, ask challenging questions, and tell stories about issues relevant to our lives.

Student Associates tour Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts with curator Essi Rönkkö

Exhibition poster for Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts featuring Victor Diop, Juan dePareja, 2014. Pigment inkjet print. Purchased with funds from the Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment, 2016.9.2.

Curated by Essi Rönkkö, Associate Curator of Collections and Kate Hadley Toftness, Senior Advancement Manager, Grants and Collection Council. This exhibition was supported by the David C. & Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, Ellen and Howard Katz, the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, and the Mary and Leigh Block Endowment.

EXHIBITION PUBLICATION

WHO SAYS, WHO SHOWS, WHAT COUNTS: Thinking

About History with The Block’s Collection

Paperback

ISBN: 9781732568426

Published: October 2021

Northwestern University Press 144 Pages, 9.75 x 7.00 in

Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with The Block’s Collection invites readers to think critically about how artists, artworks, and museums engage with narratives of the past. Highlighting more than fifty contemporary artworks recently acquired by the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, the book considers our constantly changing understanding of the past through the lens of artistic practice.

Richly illustrated and written for a general audience, this book is a companion publication to the 2021 exhibition of the same name, presented to celebrate the museum’s fortieth anniversary. Consisting of contributions by students, faculty, Block curators, and Northwestern staff from across the University community, fifty short essays reflect the perspectives of more than twenty different academic departments

Student encounters work by Pat Phillips acquired as part of The Block's 40th Anniversary Initiative

EXHIBITION — FALL 2021

SKY HOPINKA:

Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer

Katz Gallery

September 22 - December 05, 2021

Presented as a complement to Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts, Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer, a two-channel video installation by the artist Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga, born 1984, Ferndale, WA), offered an immersive and elusive reckoning with histories of colonial violence and Indigenous resistance. The thirteen-minute work examines the history of the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest fort in the continental United States.

As strands of sound, text, and image intersect across the two screens, Hopinka plays with the friction between them, asking the viewer to absorb narratives that evade the conventions of linear history. These juxtapositions expose the challenge of reconstructing the past from the incomplete fragments left behind in the archives of the colonizer. While pointedly addressing a traumatic legacy, Hopinka also uses the expressive possibilities of the digital image to open up new spaces of historical imagination, where unjust edifices dissolve to expose glimpses of breathtaking beauty and tranquility across an expansive canvas.

FILM SERIES — FALL 2021

RETELLING RESISTANCE

Block Cinema

Inspired by the exhibition Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts, Retelling Resistance explored the intersection of historical memory and radical imagination. The films in this series revisit early episodes in the struggle against colonial and cultural imperialism, from the first revolts against the Spanish administration in Cuba to the Haïtian Revolution. These filmmakers embrace anachronism over historical accuracy, collapsing the past and the present to invoke a revolutionary spirit that endures across centuries. Including rarely-screened landmarks of Third Cinema alongside daring new experiments in collective filmmaking, Retelling Resistance invited us to expand our conceptions of history, and to contemplate the struggles for justice and independence we still confront today.

550 NEW WORKS ACQUIRED FOR 40TH ANNIVERSARY

FACULTY ESSAYS FROM 21 DEPARTMENTS

MODERN LUXURY: Rethinking History (August 23, 2021)

“The works in this exhibition particularly express the way our collecting focus has evolved to think about global perspectives, to ensure that we have a collection that allows for us to have conversations about the complex world in which we live”

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: The Art Side of History: The Block Museum looks to the past in one of Fall's key exhibitions (October 1, 2021)

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN: The Block Museum’s fall exhibition “Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts” questions historical narratives (October 5, 2021)

“Institutions are made of the people who run them, and collections are moral archives [...] Whenever a museum does an exhibition from its own collection, it seems to be a self-portrait of itself.”

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN: Sky Hopinka’s “Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer” exhibition reckons with colonial violence, highlights Indigenous resistance (October 6, 2021)

“We’ve seen over the last several months, particularly in Canada, reckoning with the boarding school system with the discoveries that have been made [...] Sky’s work really addresses many of these questions and themes, and it’s a really powerful moment to be presenting this at The Block and to be creating these conversations.”

544 VISITORS AND STUDENTS IN FACILITAED TOURS

NEWCITY ART: Museums as Laboratories for Narrative Change: A Review of Who Says, What Shows, What Counts at the Block Museum (November 10, 2021)

"The work on display here successfully exhibits artists that use visual tropes in a way that decenters the Western canon to instead showcase voices and perspectives that have historically been left out... “Who Says, What Shows” reminds us that museums can thus serve as a laboratory for the next generation to rewrite history."

NEWCITY ART: The Friction of History: A Review of Sky Hopinka at the Block Museum (October 13, 2021)

SIXTY INCHES FROM CENTER: A Retelling of Contemporary Art History at The Block Museum (November 30, 2021)

"Before the advent of the camera, only the very wealthy could afford to commission a portrait of themselves. Even since the widespread availability of the photographic image, the types of people whose portraits hang in museums tend to be of a narrow demographic or have achieved a certain status."

MEDIUM / XIAO FARIA DA CUNHA: Private Memories in Art — Portraiture, Landscapes, and Historic Storytelling (January 20, 2022)

"In other words, “Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts” has proved that the most intimate human moments are just as powerful as the loudest public advocacy. Therefore, from here on, fret not if your art doesn’t seem to be “relevant, provocative, and advocating.” The loudest statements often tread in the most silent footsteps. And as time goes by, our art is what will speak for us and tell our stories."

Student Associate Chayda Harding points to the label they wrote and researched on a new acquisition by artist Deborah Kass

EXHIBITION — WINTER & SPRING 2022

Exhibition poster for A Site of Struggle featuring Darryl Cowherd, Stop White Police from Killing Us – St. Louis, MO, c. 1966-67 Gelatin Silver Print Image: 15 x 19 in., mat: 20 x 24 ¼ in., paper 16 x 20 in, © Darryl Cowherd image courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Photography

EXHIBITION — WINTER 2022 A SITE OF STRUGGLE: AMERICAN ART AGAINST ANTI-BLACK VIOLENCE

READ MORE >>>>

The Block Museum of Art: January 26 - July 10, 2022 Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, Alabama: August 13 - November 6, 2022

Originating at Northwestern's Block Museum of Art A Site of Struggle explored how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100 + year period.

Images of African American suffering and death have constituted an enduring part of the nation’s cultural landscape, and the development of creative counterpoints to these images has been an ongoing concern for American artists. A Site of Struggle took a new approach to looking at the intersection of race, violence, and art by investigating the varied strategies American artists have used to grapple with anti-Black violence, ranging from representation to abstraction and from literal to metaphorical. The exhibition focused on works created between the 1890s and 2013—situating contemporary artistic practice within a longer history of American art and visual culture. It foregrounded African Americans as active shapers of visual culture and highlights how art has been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence.

A Site of Struggle was organized by the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, and curated by Janet Dees, Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Block Museum of Art, with the assistance of Alisa Swindell, Curatorial Research Associate.

Lead support for the exhibition was generously provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The project was also supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bernstein Family Contemporary Art Fund, the Myers Foundations, the Block DEAI Fund, and the Block Board of Advisors. Generous support was contributed by William Spiegel and Lisa Kadin, the Alumnae of Northwestern University, the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, and by Lynne Jacobs. The related publication was co-published by The Block Museum of Art and Princeton University Press and is supported by Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the Sandra L. Riggs Publication Fund.

EXHIBITION VIDEOS

Art can provide a moment of pause, an opportunity for us to sit with the complex and deep-rooted nature of anti-Black violence, and contemplate how it impacts us individually and as a society. In these works, we may find recognition of our own suffering— which is important in and of itself— as well as a provocation to continue, or begin for the first time, striving to eliminate this suffering through concrete actions.

This year opportunities all museum perspective and independent This work from presentations to brochures, strategies, consider and interpretation.

— Janet Dees

Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Block Museum of Art

year our students have had opportunities to work with staff across museum departments, gaining rich perspective into both collaborative independent curatorial work. work now takes many shapespresentations and installation, brochures, blogs and other digital strategies, as our students help us consider new approaches to research interpretation.

EXHIBITION PUBLICATION

A SITE OF STRUGGLE

American Art against Anti-Black Violence

Hardcover

ISBN: 9780691209272

Published: Jan 25, 2022

160 Pages, 11 x 9 in. / Illus: 60 color illus. Princeton University Press

The book’s essays offer new perspectives from established and emerging scholars working in the fields of African American studies, art history, communications, and history. Contributors include Sampada Aranke, Courtney Baker, Huey Copeland, Janet Dees, Leslie Harris, and LaCharles Ward. Investigating the conceptual and aesthetic strategies artists have used to engage with the issue of anti-Black violence, A Site of Struggle highlights diverse works of art and ephemera from the post-Reconstruction period of the late nineteenth century to the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Published by Princeton University Press in association with the Mary

and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University.

Installation view Howardena Pindell (American, born 1943), Four Little Girls, 2020, mixed media on canvas. Courtesy the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

EXHIBITION RESOURCES CARE GUIDE

This pamphlet brought together selected works from the exhibition that are paired with artworks from The Block’s collection, poetry, and a guided meditation created specifically for this exhibition. The call-and-response structure was meant to create a dialogue between the emotional weight of selected works from A Site of Struggle and images from the museum’s collection that emphasize themes of community joy, motherhood, selfdetermination, agency, and Black womanhood.

EXHIBITION RESOURCES VISITOR'S GUIDE

This guide was made available to all exhibition visitors in person and online, offering context to the complex exhibition experience. The guide included a curator's introduction, an exploration of themes and programming, reflection questions offered by our community advisors, frequently asked questions, and select resources for further learning. The guide also contained visitor recommendations for creating a space of mutual respect and mindful presence within the gallery.

OF

12,970 VISITORS AT BLOCK

440 COMMENT CARDS

912 PROGRAM ATTENDEES OF 13 PROGRAMS

800 CINEMA ATTENDEES OF 8 EVENTS

NUMBERS

8,558 VISITORS AT MONTGOMERY MUSEUM

108 GROUP VISITS

EXHIBITION COMMENTS VISITORS RESPOND

The Block Museum staff recognized the challenging nature of the material in this exhibition, the range of responses it might elicit, and the impact it carried for visitors whose identities and lived experiences intersect with the histories presented.

Over 400 guests shared their reflections through comment cards. All cards were archived as part of the legacy of the exhibition, and many visitors chose to allow their responses to be made public. In gratitude we share a selection of comment card responses on the website ASiteofStruggle.org. a messages

READ THE RESPONSES HERE

THE HYPE MAGAZINE: Meet Janet Dees Curator of ‘A Site of Struggle: American Art Against Anti-Black Violence’ Art Exhibit

"Usually all my exhibitions start with an artwork or two or three that kind of haunts me that i can't get out of my mind" Watch Interview here.

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN: The Block Museum’s “A Site of Struggle” displays art against anti-Black violence

CHICAGO READER: Temp check

FOX NEWS CHICAGO: 'A Site of Struggle' exhibit on display at Northwestern University

EVANSTON ROUNDTABLE: Local events to finish off your Black History Month - Evanston RoundTable

ABC NEWS SAN DIEGO: Exhibit spotlights anti-Black violence through history

POLITICO: The Shows: Sunday listings for Feb. 20, 2022

ABC7 CHICAGO: Northwestern University exhibit depicts history of anti-Black violence: 'Impossible to erase'

SCENE+HEARD: Why you really, really need to see The Block’s new art exhibition on anti-Black violence

With approximately 65 pieces of art, “A Site of Struggle'' mirrors the many manifestations of racism, whether physical, psychological, or otherwise. The exhibition includes a sculpture of a Black man’s head behind t-shaped crosshairs; a garment memorializing a Black transgender woman; and lynching photographs in which victims were digitally removed to spotlight onlookers.

LA TIMES: Sunday Talk Show Guests

NBC NEWS: New exhibit highlights art against anti-Black violence

MSNBC: New Exhibit Highlights Art Against Anti-Black Violence WATCH INTERVIEW

WIDEWALLS: The Block Museum Explores How American Art Responded to Anti-Black Violence | Widewalls

THE HYPE MAGAZINE: A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence debuts at the Block Museum of Art

“The Block Museum of Art is committed to developing bold, meaningful and challenging projects that ask audiences to reconsider accepted narratives and search for new modes of understanding and active reflection,” said Lisa Corrin, The Block Museum Ellen Philips Katz director. “In its breadth of scholarly and community collaborations and support of the museum’s ongoing social justice initiatives, A Site of Struggle is one of the most important exhibitions the institution has ever undertaken.”

EURO NEWS: L'art américain dénonce les violences antiafro-descendants

USA TODAY: Timely or timeless? Art combats anti-Black violence

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: Top 10 - Fall 2021: Art, Architecture & Photography

INDIA EDUCATION DIARY: Art as a way to protest, process, mourn and memorialize anti-Black violence in America

BFC Presidential Associate Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania

"There's love's work in Huey Copeland and Janet Dees's detailed specification of the acts of care in preparing an emotionally devastating exhibition"

—David Velasco

Editor-in-Chief, Artforum

“The show is not only modeling curatorial best practices; it’s modeling spectatorial best practices as well.”

—Huey Copeland

SPOTLIGHT A SITE OF STRUGGLE MEDIA COVERAGE

The exhibition caught the attention of local and national broadcast media including Chicago PBS, ABC, FOX and NBC affiliates and national spots on USA Today and MSNBC.

NBC CHICAGO: New Exhibit Examines How Artists Have Dealt With Anti-Black Violence

AFRICANEWS: Art exhibition explores history of pervasive anti-Black violence in US

MIRAGE NEWS: ‘A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence’ debuts at Block Museum of Art Jan. 26

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: ‘A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence’ coming to the Block Museum

ART AND OBJECT: Northwestern University to Host "A Site of Struggle"

CULTURE TYPE: On the Rise: Curators who took new appointments

SEE GREAT ART: Artists take on anti-Black violence in A Site of Struggle exhibit

NEWS BREAK DALLAS, TX: ‘A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence’ to debut Jan. 26 at Block Museum

ART AND EDUCATION: A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence

REDEYE CHICAGO: Top 10 Visual Art in Chicago: Big Shows, Big Messages

F-STOP MAGAZINE: A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence @ The Block Museum of Art

TIME OUT CHICAGO: A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence

Interesting race, violence, and art by investigating the varied strategies American artists have used to grapple with anti-Black violence, the artwork ranges from literal to metaphorical. And while it may be showcasing works created between the 1890s and 2013 — it speaks to contemporary artistic practice within a longer history of American art and visual culture.

BLACK NEWS: The Block Museum of Art unveils its latest exhibition, “A Site of Struggle: American Art against AntiBlack Violence”

CRAIN'S CHICAGO BUSINESS: Arts and Culture Intel

COLOSSAL: 'A Site of Struggle: American Art against AntiBlack Violence' @ The Block Museum of Art

ARTFIXDAILY: 'A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence' Opens at The Block Museum of Art

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Exhibition rounds up more than a century of art showing and condemning racial violence

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN: “A Site of Struggle” brings historical context to anti-Black violence

WTTW NEWS: New Exhibit Explores Intersection of AntiBlack Violence and Art

“From a very early time, artists were engaged in the politics of making it known there was an injustice happening [...] That was at a time when you had lower literacy rates. So people had to rely on visuals to reach larger audiences, because not everyone was reading the paper or picking up books.”

EVANSTON ROUNDTABLE: ‘An archive of Black creative genius’: A Site of Struggle exhibit explores resistance to anti-Black violence

“This social event informs, it moves, it creates action, and Evanston’s community is not foreign to that. Specifically, in the Black community in Evanston, which dates back to 1850, there’s always been a movement of action and addressing social issues.”

NEWCITY ART: Art Top 5: May 2022

SPOTIFY: American Art against Anti-Black Violence | Janet Dees | NU People Podcast E4

THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

Installation view of A Site of Struggle showing layout with interior viewing space and controlled site lines

EXHIBITION ADVISORS COMMUNITY ADVISORS

Advised by Northwestern’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Relations, The Block embarked on a multi-year series of dialogues which solicited input on A Site of Struggle from diverse community stakeholders to shape visitor experience; co-develop collaborative programming on issues of racial injustice; and build trust for continued engagement.

Dino Robinson Founder, Shorefront Legacy Center, Facilitator

Tiffany McDowell

YWCA Evanston/Northshore’s Equity Institute, Facilitator

LeAnn Jenkins

YWCA Evanston/Northshore’s Equity Institute, Facilitator

Melissa Blount artist/activist/ psychotherapist- Black Lives Matter Witness Quilt project/

Fran Joy artist

Rev. Dr. Michael Nabors President Evanston N.A.A.C.P/ Pastor Second Baptist Church

Nathan Norman Youth and Young Adult Program Supervisor, City of Evanston

Rebeca Mendoza District 65 School Board, Evanston Latinos

ARTISTS EXHIBITED

Laylah Ali (American, b.1968)

George Wesley Bellows (American, 18821925),

George Biddle (American 1885-1973),

Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915-2012),

Darryl Cowherd (American, b. 1940), Bob Crawford (American, 1938-2015),

Ernest Crichlow (American, 1914-2005),

David Antonio Cruz (American, b. 1974),

Emory Douglas (American, b. 1943),

Melvin Edwards (American, b. 1937)

Theaster Gates (American, b. 1973),

Ken Gonzales-Day (American, b. 1964)

Wilmer Jennings (American, 1910-1990)

Norman Lewis, (American, 1909-1979)

Christian Marclay (American, b. 1955)

Kerry James Marshall (American, b. 1955)

Robin Rue Simmons former Evanston 5thWard Alderman, National African American Reparations Commission

Corey Winchester teacher, Evanston Township High School, advisor S.O.A.R.( Students Organized Against Racism)

Angela Williams Evanston Arts Council, Director of Design and Exhibit Development Museum of Science and Industry

Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904-1988)

Mendi + Keith Obadike (American, b. 1973)

Howardena Pindell (American b. 1943)

Carl and Karen Pope (American, b. 1961)

Walter Quirt (American, 1902-1968)

Paul Rucker (American, b. 1968)

Lorna Simpson (American, b. 1960)

Dox Thrash (American, 1893-1965)

Molly Jae Vaughan (British, b. 1977)

Lynd Ward (American, 1905–1985)

Pat Ward Williams (American, b. 1948)

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)

Ida B. Wells (American, 1862-1931)

Walter White (American, 1893-1955), Hale Woodruff (American, 1900-1980)

EXHIBITION ADVISORS

SCHOLARS & MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS

The themes, content, and format of the exhibition were developed in consultation with an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars and museum professionals, NU faculty and graduate students, connected by their investigations of American art, visual culture, and African Americans’ production and representation within these fields. Their collaboration was anchored by two convenings held over 2018-2019.

Sampada Aranke

Assistant Professor, Art History, Theory & Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

La Tanya S. Autry

Ph.D. candidate, Art History, University of Delaware, Cultural Organizer and Independent Curator, Black Liberation Center

Courtney Baker

Associate Professor of American Studies and Black Studies, Occidental College

Elisabeth Callihan

Head of Multi-Generational Learning, Minneapolis Institute of Art (M.I.A.) and co-founder of MASS Action (Museums as Sites for Social Action)

Bridget R. Cook

Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies and Department of Art History, University of California, Irvine

Leslie Harris

Professor, Department of History, Northwestern University

Ross Jordan

Curatorial Manager, Jane Addams HullHouse Museum

Noémi Michel

Visiting Scholar, Department of African American Studies, Northwestern University and Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva

Valerie Cassel Oliver

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Kymberly Pinder, Ph.D.

Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Massachusetts College of Art and Design; ( incoming Dean, School of Art, Yale University)

Maurita Poole, Ph.D.

Director, Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries

Veronica Roberts

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin

Nicole Soukup

Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, M.I.A.

Shawn Michelle Smith

Professor, Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Lorelei Stewart

Director, Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago

LaCharles Ward

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Media at Risk, University of Pennsylvania

Mlondolozi Zondi

Ph.D. Candidate, Performance Studies, Northwestern University

Members of Scholar Advisor group during A Site of Struggle exhibition convening

EXHIBITION — SPRING 2022 BLOSSOM SOUP, BLOSSOM SALAD

2022 MFA Thesis Exhibition

Alsdorf Gallery

May 6-June 19, 2022

The 2022 Master of Fine Arts degree candidates

— Yani aviles, an emard, Whitney Johnson, Scott Kemp, Travis Morehead, jess mai walker — present their thesis projects and conclude their residencies in the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. This year's thesis exhibition is accompanied by events, programming, and a publication.

Installation view and select artworks on view in 2022 MFA Thesis Exhibition

THESIS SHOWCASE — SPRING 2022

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

NU MFA Doc Media Thesis Showcase

Block Cinema

June 9-10, 2022

Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass showed the world that life isn’t always what it seems to be. This is also the work of documentary films in reflecting our realities back to us. Amid a world of staggering unpredictability, “Through the Looking-Glass” showcased short films by MFA Documentary Media students who step into their own looking-glasses of introspection to find themselves and others in their rawest and most intimate forms and truths. Each night of screenings featured a selection of new short documentaries, with the opportunity to engage with the makers and celebrate their accomplishments

Student Associate designed sweatshirt commemorating their 2021-2022 year

WHO SAYS, WHO SHOWS, WHAT COUNTS

Marking its 40th Anniversary, The Block considered authorship and responsibility in the shaping of historical narratives.

Visitors consider the exhibition Who Say, Who Shows, What Counts

Asking ‘Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts’ to mark our 40th anniversary 80 new acquisitions invite audiences to consider how artists and collections challenge our view of the past.

images”

Sarah Maza, Andrea Carlson, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and Chris Pappan on art and history.

Reframing the Past in Rosalie Favell

& Shan Goshorn's work

Acknowledging the problematic relationship between indigenous cultures and the camera.

“Collections are Museums’ Self- Portraits”

An analysis of the exhibition section Institutions Critiqued.

Channeling Indigenous Histories

Sky Hopinka in Conversation.

Who Says?

Block Student Associates share their reflections on works that resonated.

“This battle has been fought with

2021-2022 STORIES

A SITE OF STRUGGLE

Our landmark 2022 exhibition explored how artists have engaged with the reality and challenges of representing anti-Black violence.

Visitors to A Site of Struggle stand in front installation work by Molly Jae Vaughan (British, born 1977) Lateisha “Teish” Green, 400 Block of Seymour Street, Syracuse, from Project 42, 2021 Inkjet and silkscreen printed fabric.

"What Art Does"

Lisa Corrin on the Block's 2021-22 themes.

The power of the visual to make change

A Site of Struggle exhibition announcement

An Opening Offering

Opening conversation with remarks by Courtney R. Baker, Dino Robinson, Carl and Karen Pope, Robin R. Means Coleman, and Natasha Trethewey

On Collaboration, Context, and Counterpoints

“May we all be free”

A conversation with Joshua Bee Alafia on bringing meditation to the museum space

Art and Activism

Contemporary Resonances of the 1935 NAACP exhibition “An Art Commentary on Lynching” [Video]

A Conversation Series on Museum Practice [Video]

Carl and Karen Pope, Robin R. Means Coleman, and Natasha Trethewey

“A fundamental obligation to promote truth”

A Northwestern University Discussion on A Site of Struggle

Aligned Academics

Two Northwestern courses offer indepth exploration of A Site of Struggle

2021-2022 STORIES

A SITE OF STRUGGLE

A Site of Struggle traveled to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Alabama where the conversation continued.

View of A Site of Struggle opening program at Montgomery Museum of Fine Art

Sharing the Struggle

The Block shared reflections from the exhibition comment card project

Spaces for Dialogue

Janet Dees, Angie Dodson, Ashley Rogers and Dietrah Taylor on museum professionals as advocates

Forthright Questions

Discussing A Site of Struggle at Auburn University

MMFA Exhibition Opening

A Site of Struggle opens at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

Staying with the Struggle

Exhibition scholars reflect on studying anti-Black violence

Histories of

Struggle

Allyson Nadia Field on the film

10—U.S.A. 10,000”

STUDENT VOICES

Students are essential to The Block's mission. In 2021-22 we continued to expand the scope of our Student Associates, Fellows, and Internship programs -through which student play a key role in animating the vision of the museum.

Meet the 2021-22 Block Museum Art

Meet our 2021-2022 Intern

Sarah Dwider

History Fellow

Madie Giaconia

Student Associates

The Block launches new Student Associates program with 16-member cohort, updating its Student Docent program

Chayda Harding

Block Student Associate leader recognized with 2022 Wildcat Impact Award

Partnership Spotlight

American Sign Language – English Interpretation Program

2022 Student Acquisition

Block Museum Student Associates select work by Michael Koerner

Parting Gift

Artist Leonard Suryajaya unveils photographic collaboration with Block Museum students

“We celebrate one another’s specificities”

Leonard Suryajaya in conversation [Video]

CONNECTIONS, DISCUSSION, & TEACHING

The Block is driven by the currency of ideas. These dialogues, discussions and ongoing projects represent the connections that catalyzed our work this year.

One Step in the Footpath of Many

Block curators focus on converging Indigenous art in Tulsa partnership

The Joy and Chaos of Collectivity

Communicating through Art

Museum clinical study partnership considers the role of art in combating primary progressive aphasia

Holding Binoculars, Pointing a Camera

Filmmakers Frédéric Moffet, Joelle Mercedes, and Deborah Stratman

“Who gets to describe the world?”

Director Courtney Stephens in Conversation

Roycemore School’s

‘Museum Mania’ Partnership Spotlight

An Immersive Practice Conversations with Christopher Harris, Crystal Z. Campbell & Paige Taul

The Limits of the Archive

A Conversation with Chase Joynt [Audio]

To Render the Infinite Kevin Jerome Everson, Paige Taul, & zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal in conversation [Audio]

COLLECTION & ACQUISITION

STORIES

From new works to new research, 2021-22 brought opportunities to explore and activate our collection in rich and surprising ways.

A Close Look

Margaret Burrough’s “Mother and Child”

Collection Talk

Henry Simon “Industrial Frankenstein” (1932) [Video]

Collection Talk

W. Eugene Smith “Robert Slocombe, Monsanto Chemical Co” (1953) [Video]

Collection Talk

Will Wilson “Shiprock Disposal Cell, Shiprock, New Mexico, Navajo Nation” (2020) [Video]

Collection Spotlight

Mikki Ferrill, Untitled (Chicago, IL)

Collection Spotlight

Pothi Box, Dayanita Singh

Collection Spotlight

Models in Gowns by Madeleine Vionnet, Edward Steichen

SPOTLIGHT: IF YOU REMEMBER, I'LL REMEMBER

Softcover

130 Pages, 7.00 x 9.75 in Paperback - 46 color illustrations

ISBN 9781732568433

Published Summer 2022

Northwestern University Press

On the occassion of the fifth anniversary of the exhibition If You Remember, I'll Remember, The Block was proud to release a retrospective publication that considers the project as a case study of engaged museum practice.

If You Remember, I'll Remember (2017) was an invitation to reflect upon the connection between the past and present through works of art. Exploring themes of love, mourning, war, relocation, and resistance in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America, it brought together the work of seven contemporary artists whose practices are based in archival research and incorporate historic documents and objects: Kristine Aono (b. 1960), Shan Goshorn (b. 1957-2018), Samantha Hill (b. 1974), McCallum & Tarry (active 1998-2013), Dario Robleto (b. 1972), and Marie Watt (b. 1967).

This richly illustrated publication serves as a record of the exhibition, its related programs, and its in-depth engagement projects - from sewing circles focused on the theme of equity to conversations with internment camp survivors - developed through discussion and collaboration with artists and campus and community partners. The retrospective nature of the publication allows for the inclusion of participants' voices, and reflection upon the broader process of museums working closely with multiple stakeholders. This approach contributes a valuable case study to current methodological conversations about collaborations between artists, museums, and communities.

SPOTLIGHT: ALT TEXT INITIATIVE

In March 2021, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) called on its members to advocate across museum departments to create action plans for DEIA practices in collections work, including working across departments and institutions to catalogue artist identity respectfully and accurately. This call resonated with communications with our own audience base asking us to invest in increased equitable access to our collections. We have recognized that digital cataloguing and its related responsibilities play a critical role in our commitments to value-driven representation of our diverse and growing collection.

Maintaining the database requires the ongoing review of object records against ethical cataloguing best practices that are benchmarked in dialogue with peers. It also requires the documentation of new findings about artists and their works and specialized training of staff and students to make our research available online using standardized formats and nomenclature. Standards for the ethical cataloguing and digital accessibility of online art collections are

rapidly changing, and we see an exciting opportunity to become a leader in the academic art museum space.

With a part-time Curatorial Associate now dedicated to Collections work, we have been able to launch cross-departmental partnerships, to embark on new ethical cataloguing projects, and to determine areas in need of more support. In Fall 2021, we launched our first multi-year collections information initiative: beginning to include “Alt Texts” for images of artworks in our public-facing collection database, content that is required to be compliant with Northwestern’s digital accessibility requirements. Alt texts are descriptive texts that are available on our collection website, providing an alternative for visitors who are blind or visually impaired. At our current capacity, after a year and a half of work, we have completed alt texts for 25% of The Block’s online collection.

–Melanie Garcia Sympson Curatorial Coordinator, Collections Information and Digital Interpretation

Block Staff convene for a monthly Alt-Text Power Hour

2021–2022 ACQUISITIONS

Fernando Bryce (Peruvian, born 1965)

ARTNews 1948 II

2016

Ink on wove paper in thirteen parts

46 3/4 × 96 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Anonymous Gift 2022.1.1a-m

Fernando Bryce (Peruvian, born 1965)

Apollo 11/Luna 15

2019

Ink on wove paper in two parts 41 × 60 1/2 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Anonymous Gift 2022.1.2a-b

Jess Dugan (American, born 1986)

Every Breath We Drew

2019–2021

Portfolio of ten photographs

18 x 13 1/2 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Julie and Lawrence Bernstein Family Art Acquisition Fund purchase 2022.5a-m

Mikki Ferrill (American, born 1937)

Untitled, Chicago, IL ca. 1965, printed before 1980

Gelatin silver print 10 × 8 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase 2021.15

Mikki Ferrill (American, born 1937)

Untitled, Lake Michigan, Chicago, IL, from the series Sisters in White

1973, printed before 1980

Gelatin silver print

9 15/16 × 7 15/16 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase 2022.4.1

Mikki Ferrill (American, born 1937)

Untitled

1974, printed before 1980

Gelatin silver print

8 × 9 15/16 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase 2022.4.2

Michael Koerner, Ph.D. (Japanese-American, born Okinawa, Japan, 1963)

The Beast Diagnosis #8942, from the series The Beast Diagnosis

2019

Chemigram on wet plate collodion positive (tintype) 8 × 12 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2021–2022 Block Museum Student Associates acquisition, Block Student Impact Fund purchase

2022.2.1

Michael Koerner, Ph.D. (Japanese-American, born Okinawa, Japan, 1963)

Worlds #0318, from the series Worlds

2020

Chemigram on wet plate collodion positive (tintype) 8 × 12 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2021–2022 Block Museum Student Associates acquisition, Block Student Impact Fund purchase

2022.2.2

Michael Koerner, Ph.D. (Japanese-American, born Okinawa, Japan, 1963)

Blue DNA #1205L - #1201R, from the series Blue DNA 2021

Chemigram on wet plate collodion positive (tintype) (diptych)

12 × 16 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2021–2022 Block Museum Student Associates acquisition, Block Student Impact Fund purchase

2022.2.3a b

These works by Koerner are entering the collection at a time of immense global strife as war ignites in Ukraine and a renewed nuclear threat resurrects the globe’s Cold War-era fears. Acquiring these works in a newfound era of uncertainty allows art to provide a potential catalyst for better understanding and coping with the realities we presently face. In his works, he offers a new framing of tragedy and how tragedy affects and manifests contemporarily, explicitly locating their implications in human cell structure.

–Student Associates Acquisition Justification

2021–2022 ACQUISITIONS

Nathan Lerner (American, 1913–1997)

Untitled

mid-20th century

Graphite and colored pencil on paper

15 × 11 1/2 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Kiyoko Lerner

2021.14.1

Nathan Lerner (American, 1913–1997)

Untitled

mid-20th century

Tempera on paper

11 7/8 × 9 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Kiyoko Lerner

2021.14.2

Sol LeWitt (American 1928–2007)

Wall Drawing 215

September 1973 (first installation)

Black crayon on wall

Dimensions variable

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Steven P. Henry and Philip Schneidman

2021.12

Tatsuo Miyajima (Japanese, born 1957)

Counter Fragile No. 7

2005

LEDs and stainless steel wire supports on clear acrylic base 15 1/2 × 13 1/8 × 7 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray

Collection

2022.3.1

Elle Pérez (American, born 1987)

Mae at Riis Beach

2020/2021

Inkjet print, pigment-based 35 × 23 3/8 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Purchase funds provided by Marissa Solomon Sutker and Evan Reed Solomon

2021.13

Shabtai Pinchevsky (Israeli, born 1986)

"In 'Mae at Riis Beach' Pérez photographs their friend Mae standing knee-deep in the ocean as part of long-term project with the subject which has continued throughout her transition process. Rather than stand outside looking in as other photographers might, Pérez works through their creative process as a friend, an intimate participant. “Intimacy intrigues me with its mysteries,” the artist has said. “The ties between my gender identity, kink, sexuality, pleasure, and pain are all interwoven. Instead of attempting to untangle them, I work within these complexities."

–Essi Rönkkö, Associate Curator of Collections

An Abridged Draft for a Letter to Leila Khaled

2021

Single-channel digital video, color, sound, 12:23 minutes, loop

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Lisa Munster Tananbaum and Steven Tananbaum Fund purchase

2022.6

Carl Pope (American, born 1961) and Karen Pope (American, born 1961)

Palimpsest

1999

Single-channel video, color, sound, 6:37 minutes, loop

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment fund purchase

2022.8

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720 1778)

The Palazzo dell' Accademia di Francia

1752

Etching on paper 15 3/4 × 24 1/4 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray Collection

2022.3.2

Barbara Rossi (American, born 1940)

Eye Deal

1973

Lithograph on thin wove paper, laid down on buff wove paper (chine collé)

16 × 12 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc.

2022.9.1

In Spring of 2022 The Block Museum of Art was thrilled to unveil an original artwork created for the museum’s collection by Chicago-based contemporary artist Leonard Suryajaya in collaboration with the 2021-2022 Block Museum of Art Student Associates.

Artist Prompts for Student Associates Photoshoot:

• How do you want to be seen?

• What aspects of your identity do you want to make visible or amplify?

Barbara Rossi (American, born 1940)

Eye Deal

1974

Lithograph on thin wove paper, laid down on ivory wove paper (chine collé) 24 × 18 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc.

2022.9.2

Barbara Rossi (American, born 1940)

Dome Drawing I

1968

Graphite and colored pencil on paper 10 × 10 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc.

2022.9.3

Barbara Rossi (American, born 1940)

Peter Weasel Rocking

1969

Colored pencil on paper 29 × 23 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc.

2022.9.4

• How will you communicate this through your costume/attire, skills, and accessories/objects that are meaningful to you?

• What role will flowers have to disrupt or embellish this idea?

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, born 1988)

Perennial Blossom from the series Parting Gift 2022

Inkjet print 40 x 50 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Leonard Suryajaya

2022.7

2021-2022 GIFTS OF ART

• Anonymous

• Kiyoko Lerner

• Steven P. Henry

2021–2022 LOANS FROM THE COLLECTION

Joan Truckenbrod: Digital Fibers – 1975 to Present

Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR August 3, 2021 through September 16, 2021

Joan Truckenbrod (American, born 1945)

Electronic Patchwork

1978

Color photocopy of computer monitor display transferred to polyester sheet

80 x 55 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Joan Truckenbrod, 2008.15.1

EMERGENCE: Black Queer Intersections at the Center

Southside Community Art Center

Chicago, IL

March 31, 2022 through July 15, 2022

Mikki Ferrill (American, born 1937)

Untitled (The Garage,Chicago,1973)

1973

Gelatin silver print

11 x 14 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, The Richard Florsheim Art Fund Purchase, 2000.25.1

Untitled (The Garage,Chicago,1973)

1973

Gelatin silver print

11 x 14 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, The Richard Florsheim Art Fund Purchase, 2000.25.2

Untitled,Chicago,IL

ca. 1965, printed before 1980

Gelatin silver print

10 x 8 in.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, the Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase, 2021.15

2021–2022 STORIES

MUSEUM VIEWS

The Block's staff shares thoughts on the year's impact and learning.

This year, we have worked to connect intersecting communities – on campus, in Evanston, across Chicago, and beyond -- with the Block and each other through programs and initiatives that make visible what art is, and what it does in the world; to enrich the Northwestern co-curricular student experience, support student well-being, and offer hands-on learning opportunities in the arts and museums; and to build new bridges with partners in Evanston for shared learning and engagement.

—Erin Northington Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director, Campus and Community Education and Engagement

Over the past year, we have been inspired by artworks that reframe the past and shape the future. Our Fall 2021 exhibition asked, Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts, while inviting many Northwestern voices into our effort to think about history through art. Our Winter/Spring 2022 exhibition, A Site of Struggle: American Artists Against Anti-Black Violence, called on art and artists to guide us in grappling with the enduring reality of anti-Black violence in the United States.

—Kathleen Bickford Berzock Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs

This year our students have had opportunities to work with staff across all museum departments, gaining rich perspective into both collaborative and independent curatorial work. This work now takes many shapesfrom presentations and installation, to brochures, blogs, and other digital strategies, as our students help us consider new approaches to research and interpretation.

—Corinne Granof Academic Curator

I have been so deeply moved by the way A Site of Struggle has been taken up as a resource for both the Northwestern University and greater Evanston communities and humbled by colleagues nationally citing it as a model of museum practice. Groups as different as Evanston Township High School’s Students Organized Against Racism (S.O.A.R) and Feinberg School of Medicine’s Palliative Care program have centered the exhibition in discussions around racial violence, racial equity, and trauma-informed care.

—Janet Dees Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

In 2021-2022 we were able to embrace new storytelling tools to activate meaningful conversations with and among our audiences. We created knowledge in print and online, as well as in the gallery - reaching audiences across platforms to showcase the many forms a museum's work can take. Both Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts and A Site of Struggle became opportunities for the rich dialogue and partnership stories that form the core of our institutional narrative. Of particular note, our blog reached over 25,000 readers who engaged with our news, essays, videos, and insights.

—Lindsay Bosch Senior Manager of Marketing & Communications

Our exhibition and publication project Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with The Block’s Collection in the fall felt not only like the culmination of three years of work to build our collection and relationships across campus; it felt like a launching point for new ways for connecting the collection to the curriculum. We already saw positive ripple effects in the winter and spring term in the form of increased collection use in the study room. I look forward to building on this momentum in the coming years.

—Essi Rönkkö Associate Curator of Collections

Block Cinema screening on Chicago Riverwalk

This year we were thrilled to see our traveling exhibition program realized across different projects: Caravans of Gold was able to open in Washington D.C at the National Museum of African Art, while we also planned for A Site of Struggle to travel to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art in August 2022. We were also able to highlight our growing collection by mounting several exhibitions drawn entirely from our holdings. This strategy of exhibition making helps increase the teaching, learning and research impact of our work by having more of it on public display. We are excited to continue looking for these opportunities in the coming years.

—Dan Silverstein Associate Director of Collections and Exhibition Management

This year I was fortunate enough to work on the return of all the artworks from the Caravans of Gold exhibition. It was especially rewarding to return the loans from Africa back to all their institutions. I received a WhatsApp call afterward from a staff member at the National Museum in Lagos, Nigeria and was able to say thank you to everyone there. It was such an honor and a privilege to work on this exhibition!

—Kristina Bottomley Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Collections

Caravans of Gold on view at National Museum of African Art

Throughout 2021-2022, Block Cinema invited audiences to look beyond the screen, with illuminating in-person conversations around films that explore the histories and communities represented in Block exhibitions. Strong attendance for programs like Holding Binoculars, Pointing a Camera and Block by Block: Short Films About Chicago revealed our audience’s appetite for unusual documentaries that speak to the world we inhabit together. With over 25 guest filmmaker appearances throughout the year, we not only showed movies—we created transformative encounters for students, faculty, and the larger community.

—Michael Metzger Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts

2021-22 was a wonderful learning opportunity for the Engagement department in the creation of programming that arose from true partnership. This year the ideas that sparked our dialogues and events were often ideated from the community, student and partner expertise all around us. We embraced our role as a connective department, one that excels in creating moments where folks from varied spaces of knowledge and expertise can intersect and create something new.

—Isabella Ko Engagement Coordinator

2021–2022 DONOR HONOR ROLL

$50,000 and above

Craig Ponzio

Diane Solomon and Craig

Solomon

Dorothy J. Speidel

Lisa Munster Tananbaum and Steven A. Tananbaum

Susan K. Wilson and Stephen R. Wilson

$25,000-$49,999

William W. Caldwell

Ellen Philips Katz

Eugene E. Myers*

Sandra L. Riggs

David C. Ruttenberg*

$10,000-$24,999

Kim Allen-Niesen and Keith Allen-Niesen

Mary Baglivo and James Meguerian

Elizabeth Bohart and Stuart Henry Bohart

Priscilla A. Vail Caldwell

Barbara N. Fuldner

Amy O. Geier and James Geier

Lisa Kadin and William Spiegel

Dianne Dardes Loeb and Stephen B. Loeb

Andra S. Press and Irwin Press

Susan Gecht Rieser and Richard M. Rieser

Christine Olson Robb and William John Robb, III

$5,000-$9,999

Anu Aggarwal and Arjun

Aggarwal

Clare Bell

Daniel S. Berger

Christine Meleo Bernstein and Armyan Bernstein

Nicole E. Rubens Druckman and James N. Druckman

Lynn E. Hauser and Neil L. Ross

Steven P. Henry

Cheryl Johnson-Odim

Zeynep Yasemin Keyman and Melih Keyman

Sari Klein and James A. Klein

Carol J. Narup

Ronnie K. Pirovino

Josef J. Tatelbaum

Martha P. Tedeschi and Michael Lukasiewicz

$1,000-$4,999

Anonymous

Nancy A. Abshire

Katherine Bacon Best and Robert J. Best

Stacey L. Cantor and Lowell Cantor

Kay Kujala Deaux

Janet Sally Dumas

Kristin Peterson Edwards

Judith Rachel Freeman

Carol Ginsburg and Jerome J. Ginsburg

Denise M. Gunter

Jean L. Guritz and Gary Robert Guritz

Rosalyn M. Laudati and James B. Pick

Nancy Tims Magill and R. Hugh Magill

Graciela Claudia Meltzer and Neal D. Meltzer

Diane Baraban More Carol J. Narup

Janis W. Notz and John K. Notz

Katherine Laun Olson

Debby Peterson

Jane H. Peterson and Lloyd J. Peterson

Sarah M. Pritchard and Neal E. Blair

Karen Richards Sachs and David Allan Sachs

Jean E. Shedd

Robert F. Vail

Arete Swartz Warren

$500-$999

P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale

Julie Freund Cowhey

Kate Ezra

Edwin G. Goldstein

Christopher P. Huisinga

Susan Wascher-Kumar and Prem Kumar

Debra K. Mellinger and Edward M. Mellinger Jr.

Mary Scott Patronik and Timothy J. Patronik

Duorita Jo Shorts

Elizabeth G. Stout*

Marissa Solomon Sutker and Jake Sutker

Susan Wascher-Kumar

Elizabeth Zeitler and Maximillian Zeitler

$250-$499

Kelsey Joanne Allen-Niesen

Dennis Taylor Burgart

Sally S. Dobroski and Bernard J. Dobroski

Bryna Goldman Gamson and Edward P. Gamson

Margaret Lynn Hughitt

Matthew Alan Kluk

Theodore C. Koutlas

Marilyn McCoy and Charles R. Thomas

Maria Nardelli and William R. Levin

Vicki L. Sauter

James R. Shaeffer

Donald Tritschler

Thomas O. Zurfluh

Northwestern University

Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities

Black Arts Initiative

British Cluster

Department of English

Gender & Sexuality Studies

The Graduate School

Performance Studies; School of Communication

Radio, Television, and Film; School of Communication

Undergraduate Research Assistant Program

*Deceased

2021 –2022 GRANTS

Among the grant highlights of the past year, The Block’s upcoming exhibition on the Indigenous art history of Chicago (2025) received a second award from the Terra Foundation for American Art, with these funds dedicated to community engagement research and development. The Indigenous methodological approach of that project’s development has led to a sustained shift in the museum’s grant proposals in order to emphasize process over product and to reflect reciprocal partnerships throughout project development, including fundraising work. This approach has been welcomed by sponsors who are seeking to evolve their funding practices to be more equitable and inclusive. Other major support received for upcoming exhibitions and programs include grants from the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

–Kate Hadley Toftness Senior Advancement Manager, Grants and Collection Council

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

$100,000 AND ABOVE

Terra Foundation for American Art

Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

$25,000 – $99,999

National Endowment for the Arts Myers Foundations

David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation

$10,000 – $24,999

Illinois Arts Council Agency

The Alumnae of Northwestern University

$5,000 – $9,999

Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation

Up to $4,999

Furthermore: A program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund

Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities