January 8, 2004

American art takes spotlight at Block Museum this winter

By Judy Moore

Works by some of the nation’s most “passionate and provocative” artists will be explored when the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art dedicates its winter and spring 2004 programming to American art.

Joseph Hirsch, Lynch Family, 1946. Oil on canvas, 35 x 33 inches. Courtesy the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. From the exhibition American Expressionism: Art and Social Change, 1920s-1950s.

These artists tackled social problems such as poverty, the working poor, the Great Depression, racism, anti-Semitism, the onset of Fascism, World War II and nuclear threat during the Cold War.

“Our exhibitions, ‘American Expressionism: Art and Social Change, 1920s-1950s’; ‘Working Conditions: Depression-Era American Prints’ and ‘Lorna Simpson: 31’ include, or are themselves, important works of American art that are individual and unique, but also share a common interest in looking upon, or creating art from this nation’s historical margins,” said David Robertson, director of the Block Museum.

A fourth exhibition, “American Diorama: A Video Installation by Charles Woodman,” is a comprehensive representation of 19th and 20th century American landscape.

One exhibition will be open from Jan. 17 to March 28. Three others will be open from Jan. 30 to May 9. Admission to all four is free. Detailed information follows:

• “American Expressionism: Art and Social Change, 1920s-1950s,” Jan. 30 to May 9, Main Gallery, organized by the Columbus Museum of Art, critically re-examines artists of early 20th century America and represents the blending of European and American sensibilities in an art that used the innovations of modernism to support those whose fortunes were crushed by circumstance, backbreaking labor or brutality of war.

• “Working Conditions: Depression-Era American Prints,” Jan. 30 to May 9, Print, Drawing and Photography Study Center, explores the conditions of urban industrial labor during the Great Depression. Drawn from the Block Museum’s collection of American prints from the 1930s, it will address some of the critical issues facing the working classes, ranging from work hazards to the devastating impact of unemployment.

• For more than 20 years, Lorna Simpson has been challenging gender and racial stereotypes in her provocative photographs, installations and films. The exhibition “Lorna Simpson: 31,” Jan. 17 to March 28, Alsdorf Gallery, originally commissioned for “Documenta XI” (the celebrated exhibition of contemporary art featuring the work of 116 artists, that ran from June to September 2002 in Kasssel, Germany), tracks a month in the life of an unknown woman in a grid of 31 small video screens. She is observed in her apartment, the street, the office, and various recreational spaces during the 31-day period. Despite appearing to be circumscribed by her daily routine, Simpson’s unknown woman is not always where we expect her to be.

• To provide a more poetic backdrop to these socially charged looks at American culture, the video installation “American Diorama: A Video Installation by Charles Woodman,” Jan. 30 through May 9, Ellen Philips Katz and Howard C. Katz Gallery/Classroom, follows a long tradition of representations of the American landscape. From Albert Bierstadt’s 19th century majestic paintings of western mountain scenery to 20th century panoramic photographs, artists have created landscapes powerful in their symbolism – nationalistic and spiritual. Shot on location across the United States, Charles Woodman’s five-channel video installation is both a document of and a poetic response to the natural landscape and exploits the medium’s ability to portray time, movement and space.

“To complement these interrelated exhibitions, the Block Museum and Block Cinema, working with Northwestern’s Center for Art and Technology and American Studies, Gender Studies and African Studies programs as well as the University’s departments of history; radio, television and film; art history, and art theory and practice, have organized a series of artist talks, lectures, symposia and films to deepen our understanding of the complex and often unsettling nature of American culture,” said Robertson. “At this time of heightened national awareness, and social, political and economic uncertainties, these exhibitions remind us of how far we have come and how far we have to go as a nation.”

Detailed information regarding related programs scheduled in conjunction with the winter and spring 2004 exhibitions will be announced at a later date.

For more information call the Block Museum at (847) 491-4000.