The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University: A Hub for Art, History, and Critical Thinking

The Block Museum of Art, situated on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, stands as a dynamic institution dedicated to fostering critical thinking about history through art. Established in 1980, the museum has evolved from a changing exhibition space to a vital center for education, research, and community engagement. This article delves into the history of the Block Museum, its diverse collection, and its commitment to challenging conventional narratives of the past.

Origins and Evolution

The Block Museum of Art traces its roots to 1980 when Chicago art collectors Mary (daughter of Albert Lasker) and Leigh B. Block (former vice president of Inland Steel Company) provided funds to Northwestern University for constructing an art exhibition venue. In recognition of their generous gift, the university named the changing exhibition space the Mary and Leigh Block Gallery.

Initially conceived as a kunsthalle, modeled after the German tradition, the Gallery focused on temporary exhibitions without a permanent collection. However, the museum soon began acquiring a permanent collection as the university transferred many of its art pieces to the museum. In 1998, recognizing its growing collection and expanding programming, the Gallery was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and officially became the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art.

Architectural Transformation

The original museum building, constructed in 1980, was designed by the Chicago architecture firm Loebl Schlossman & Hackl. In 1989, the Block's outdoor sculpture garden was established. Sixteen sculptures were gifts to Northwestern University by donors Mary and Leigh Block and other supporters.

In 1999, the Block embarked on a major reconstruction project and reopened in a new facility in September 2000, with a design by Chicago architectural firm Lohan Associates. Designed by acclaimed Chicago architect Dirk Lohan (the grandson of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) and substantially funded by a private donation from businessman, lawyer, and philanthropist Paul Leffmann, the glass, steel, and limestone structure tripled the size of the original facility. In 2015, the museum launched a public lobby lounge known as The Block Spot, equipped with Wi-Fi, seating, study spaces, and meeting spots.

A Growing and Diverse Collection

The Block Museum houses a growing permanent collection of over 6,000 artworks. The collection has strengths in prints, drawings, and photographs by American and European modern and contemporary artists. Specialized collections include American computer-generated artworks, Chicago-based printmakers of the 1930s and ‘40s, documentary photography of the Midwest, and South African prints of the early 1990s.

Since 2016, The Block has increased the diversity of media and the international array of artists represented in its collection. Recent gifts and purchases have included videos, sculpture, drawings, photographs, and installations by internationally known contemporary artists such as Paul Chan, Omar Victor Diop, Felix Gonzalez Torres, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The Block Museum’s collection provides an innovative and active teaching and learning resource for the University and its surrounding communities. Educators in fields as varied as performance studies, journalism, and material science visit our collection and access our online database to teach visual literacy, develop critical thinking skills, and draw thematic connections.

"Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts": Rethinking History through Art

In the 2020-2021 academic year, The Block Museum 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 culminated with Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about 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 80 modern and contemporary artworks recently acquired by The Block Museum of Art, the exhibition considers our constantly changing understanding of the past through the lens of artistic practice. It features 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.

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The exhibition borrows its title and an entry point from a work in The Block’s collection by conceptual artist Louise Lawler, Who Says, Who Shows, Who Counts (1990), which draws attention to barriers that exist within the art world. Organized around challenging issues of historical representation within artworks and institutions, the exhibition asks:

How can art help us reflect upon, question, rewrite, or reimagine the past?
Who has been represented in visual art, how, and by whom?
How is history etched onto a landscape or erased from it?
How do museums and dominant canons of art history shape our view of history and of the past?

An accompanying publication deepens the exhibition’s exploration of The Block’s collection. Showcasing the depth and breadth of recent acquisitions, more than 50 short essays reflect the perspectives of over 20 different academic units. Including voices from students, alumni, faculty, and staff, both the book and exhibition reflect on the ways in which art can facilitate multidisciplinary connections, ask challenging questions, and help us to envision new futures.

The exhibition was curated by Essi Rönkkö, Associate Curator of Collections, and Kate Hadley Toftness, Senior Advancement Manager, Grants and Collection Council.

Key Themes Explored in the Exhibition

Institutions Critiqued: This theme examines how artists challenge and critique the structures and power dynamics within institutions, including museums, art history canons, and societal norms.
Critical Portraits: This section explores how artists use portraiture to challenge traditional representations and power structures, giving voice to marginalized communities and questioning dominant narratives.

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Reframing the Past: This theme examines how artists reinterpret historical events and narratives, offering alternative perspectives and challenging conventional understandings of the past.
Place and Memory: This section explores the relationship between place, memory, and history, examining how artists use landscapes and locations to evoke historical events and personal experiences.

"A Site of Struggle": Confronting Anti-Black Violence

A Site of Struggle is a groundbreaking exhibition that originated at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, exploring 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 takes 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 focuses on works created between the 1890s and 2013-situating contemporary artistic practice within a longer history of American art and visual culture.

Other Notable Exhibitions

The Block Museum has hosted a variety of notable exhibitions, including:

A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s: This exhibition celebrated the life and work of Charlotte Moorman, a musician, performance artist, and champion of experimental art.
William Blake and the Age of Aquarius: This exhibition explored the impact of British visionary poet and artist William Blake on a broad range of American artists in the post-World War II period.
Up Is Down: Mid-Century Experimentation in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Design Associates: This exhibition showcased the innovative "designs-in-film" created by the Chicago-based design firm Goldsholl Design Associates.
Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa: Presenting more than 250 artworks spanning five centuries and a vast geographic expanse, the exhibition features loans from partner institutions in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria, many of which will be seen in North America for the first time.

Student Engagement and the Collection

The Block Museum of Art’s collection supports learning across disciplines through exhibitions, research, and class and co-curricular visits. One of the ways we grow this resource is through an annual student-led collecting initiative undertaken by the Block Museum Student Associates (BMSAs), an interdisciplinary group of Northwestern undergraduates. The 2024-2025 BMSAs recommended the purchase of three works by artist Chitra Ganesh inspired by images from the comic book series Amar Chitra Katha, which popularizes Indian epics and folklore. Like many stories written for children, Amar Chitra Katha reinforces conventional models of gender relations and sexuality as well as citizenship, nationalism, religious expression, and public behavior. Ganesh subverts these narrative traditions and their embedded patriarchal norms by constructing alternative worlds where women, girls, and other marginalized communities are empowered.

Visiting the Block Museum

Block Museum exhibitions and events are free and open to the public. Northwestern is closely monitoring developments related to the coronavirus pandemic and follows local, state, and University guidelines for in-person events and museum visitation.

Hours:

Wednesday-Friday: 12-8pm
Saturday-Sunday: 12-5pm

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