MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at (847) 491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

September 30, 2003

Block Unveils Four Fall Exhibitions

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Drawing is the main focus of the Northwestern University Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art’s four fall exhibitions. Three of the exhibitions open Sept. 26 and the fourth on Oct. 4. Several related lectures and free tours of the exhibitions are also planned.

Paris was the center of artistic experimentation and production during the 19th and 20th centuries and a focal point of the European art world. “Drawn toward the Avant-Garde: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century French Drawings from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen,” Sept. 26 through Nov. 30, in the Main Gallery, is an exhibition that showcases 80 rarely exhibited drawings and watercolors by Ingres, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Picasso and others. It provides an elegant survey, tracing the intersections between traditional media and modern interpretations. This exhibition was organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Va.

The Block Museum’s collection of Northern European and Italian drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries will be highlighted during the “Old Master Drawings from the Collection: Traditional Drawing Practices in European Art,” Sept. 26 through Nov. 30, in the Print, Drawing and Photography Study Center. Works attributed to Parmigianino, Lucca Giordano, Robbesant and Francesco Vanni are among the treasures in the Block’s collection. Many of these works were donated to the University in the early 1960s by Mr. and Mrs. Norman H. Pritchard and have not been on display for more than 20 years. This small exhibition offers an excellent opportunity to consider traditional practices in European drawing in light of the modern approaches found in the complementary drawing exhibition in the Block’s Main Gallery, “Drawn toward the Avant-Garde.”

Multidisciplinary artist Carolee Schneemann has transformed the definition of art and the discourse on the body, sexuality and gender. Since the 1960s, she has been a pioneering, taboo-breaking performance artist, video- and filmmaker, installation artist and writer. “Up To and Including Her Limits,” Sept. 26 through Dec. 14, in the Ellen Philips Katz and Howard C. Katz Gallery/Classroom is a site-specific installation based on her performances from 1973 to 1976. These performances, in which Schneemann was suspended naked from a tree surgeon’s harness, are akin to the semiautomatic writings of the Dadaists and Surrealists and Jackson Pollock’s action painting. The sustained and variable movements of her extended drawing create a dense web of strokes and markings manifesting the vestiges of the body’s energy in motion.

Honoré Daumier’s is the best-known political cartoonist and caricaturist of 19th century France. His work straddles the spheres of journalism, fine art, caricature and satire to make critical, incisive and humorous commentary that attacking government officials, the bourgeoisie, and everyone in between. The exhibition “Honoré Daumier: Public and Private Domains,” Oct. 4 through Dec. 14, in the Alsdorf Gallery, draws upon the recent gift of more than 350 Daumier lithographs donated by Sidney and Vivian Kaplan. This exhibition will explore the power of the graphic arts to spread political and social commentary to broad and diverse audiences. An impeccable draftsman with a quick wit, Daumier mercilessly lampooned King Louis-Philippe, scrutinized political corruption, and ridiculed the Parisian bourgeoisie in work that combined social and political critique with uncompromising skill.

The Block Museum’s ongoing exhibition, “Theo Leffmann: Weaving a Life into Art,” re-opens Sept. 26, in the Theo Leffmann Gallery. Theo Leffmann is recognized as a rich contributor to the American fiber art movement in the late 20th century. For more than 30 years, she liberated textiles from practical and decorative applications by using them as a means of personal expression. The Theo Leffmann Gallery is dedicated to Leffmann’s work and highlights selections from the more than 75 fiber constructions by Leffmann in the Block Museum’s permanent collection.

Docent-led tours of the fall exhibitions will be held at 2 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday from Oct. 4 through Dec. 14. Reservations are not required. To schedule a private or group tour for your organization or school, call the educational department at (847) 491-4852.

The Block Museum has scheduled several lectures this fall in the museum’s James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium.

W.J.T. Mitchell, professor of English and art history, University of Chicago, will describe the limits of a general theory of media in arts and communication during “Addressing Media,” 5:15 to 7:15 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9.

During “Daumier’s Sad Clowns,” 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, Northwestern’s Stephen Eisenman, professor of art history, will discuss the melancholy theme of the “saltimbanques” -- traveling acrobats, musicians and clowns who entertained passing spectators -- that were a favorite subject of artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a recurring metaphor in Daumier’s paintings and prints of the 1860s.

Artist Carolee Schneemann, a pioneer visual artist since the 1960s, will discuss resistance and radicalization in contemporary art, while presenting a history of her own work during ”Disruptive Consciousness, “ 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29. Through recent video and slides, she will examine the unpredictable directives of lived experience, the unconscious, and the materials through which her installations, films and videos take form. Her motives for addressing new technologies, social issues, and the latent cultural taboos surrounding sensuality will be discussed.

Elizabeth Childs, professor of art history at Washington University and a leading scholar in the interpretation of the art of Daumier, will discuss the satire and multiple meanings in Daumier’s political lithographs when she delivers the annual Phyllis Ellis Lecture, “Strategies of Humor” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6.

The Block Museum is located at 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus. Admission is free. For more information regarding Block Museum exhibitions, programs or location, phone (847) 491-4000. Or go to the Block Museum Web site at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu