SPRING 2018
A P RI L 1 4 – AU G U ST 5 , 2 01 8 H A N K
W I L L I S
T H O M A S :
UNBRANDED Hank Willis Thomas is “America’s great protest artist.” — The Guardian How do images in advertising campaigns perpetuate ideas about race, gender, and class? This exhibition brings together selections from two bodies of work by renowned American artist Hank Willis Thomas (b.1976): Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008 and Unbranded: A Century of White Women 1915-2015. Thomas removes slogans and product names from historical and contemporary advertisements, asking us to confront the impact of images on the popular imagination. Support provided by the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation; the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Experiments in Form: Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, Frank Stella
JANUARY 13–JUNE 24, 2018
I Think We’re Alone Now: Art Theory and Practice MFA Thesis Exhibition
Inspired by the recent gift to the Block of the painting One (1970) by Sam Gilliam (b.1933), Experiments in Form features works by Gilliam, Alan Shields (1944-2005), and Frank Stella (b. 1936) as starting points to consider the ways in which artists were experimenting with the conventions of painting and printmaking in the 1960s and 1970s.
MAY 10–JUNE 24, 2018
James Britt, Joe Cassan, Kandis Friesen and Christopher Smith—2018 Master of Fine Arts degree candidates in the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University—present their thesis projects, concluding two years of intensive artistic development. Support provided by the Norton S. Walbridge Fund; the Myers Foundations; the Jerrold Loebl Fund for the Arts; and the Alsdorf Endowment.
40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
FREE AND OPEN TO ALL blockmuseum.northwestern.edu
Front Left: Hank Willis Thomas, The natives will get restless, 1976/2015, [detail], 2015, digital chromogenic print, 40 x 40 3/9 inches. Front Right: Hank Willis Thomas, Bleach and Glow, 1975/2008 [detail], 2008, LightJet print, 36 x 27 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Back images: 1) Hank Willis Thomas, Bounce back to normal,1933/2015, [detail], 2015,. Digital chromogenic print, 44 9/16 × 40 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 2) Christopher Smith, I Think We’re Alone Now, 2017. 3) Sam Gilliam, One [detail], 1970, acrylic on un-stretched canvas, 97 x 67 inches, Collection of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, from the Collection of Walter A. Netsch and Dawn Clark Netsch.