The Block Museum of Art - Winter 2019

W I N T E R 2019

season

What’s inside

The Block?

THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART

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What’s inside The Block? It depends on how you look.

HOURS

GETTING HERE

Mon. Tues./Sat./ Sun. Wed./ Thurs./ Fri.

CLOSED 10 AM – 5 PM 10 AM – 8 PM

Location

FREE ADMISSION

The Block Museum of Art is located at 40 Arts Circle Drive, on the southeastern portion of Northwestern’s Evanston campus, near the lake and Sheridan Road.

Admission to exhibitions, screenings, and programming is always free and open to all.

Parking

RSVP Let us know you are coming! The Block Museum maintains a suggested RSVP list for public program offerings: bit.ly/BlockRSVP Event entry is first-come, first-served, and RSVP does not guarantee entry if capacity is reached.

Guest parking is available at the Segal Visitors Center Garage (1847 Campus Drive, Evanston). Parking is FREE after 4 PM on weekdays and all day on weekends. All other times parking is $8. The Arts Circle Drive is open to vehicles and patrons with disabilities will find an accessible location for pick-up and drop-off directly in front of the museum.

Public Transportation

CONTACT US Phone 847. 491. 4000 Email block-museum@northwestern.edu

The Block Museum is a 15–20 minute walk from the Davis and Foster stations on the CTA’s Purple Line. The Davis station has an elevator. On the Metra, the museum is a 15 -20 minute walk from the Union-Pacific North Davis station.

Web blockmuseum.northwestern.edu

Follow us! @nublockmuseum or https://nublockmuseum.blog

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THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART

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EXHIBITIONS

A man rides his camel to market in the Agadez region of central Niger. Photograph by Cynthia Becker, 2009

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Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa January 26 – July 21, 2019 Main Gallery “Caravans of Gold reaches across boundaries and challenges conventional ideas about “Africa,” “Islam,” and “Medieval.” – Henry Louis Gates Travel with the Block Museum along routes crossing the Sahara Desert to a time when West African gold fueled expansive trade and drove the movement of people, culture, and religious beliefs.

Caravans of Gold is the first major exhibition addressing the scope of Saharan trade and the shared history of West Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe from the eighth to sixteenth centuries. Weaving stories about interconnected histories, the exhibition showcases the objects and ideas that connected at the crossroads of the medieval Sahara and celebrates West Africa’s historic and underrecognized global significance.

Caravans of Gold draws on recent archaeological discoveries, including rare fragments from major medieval African trading centers like Sijilmasa, Gao, and Tadmekka. These “fragments in time” are seen alongside works of art that invite us to imagine them as they once were. They are the starting point for a new understanding of the medieval past and for seeing the present in a new light.

Presenting more than 250 artworks spanning five centuries and a vast geographic expanse, the exhibition features unprecedented loans from partner institutions in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria, many of which will be seen in North America for the first time.

Traveling to The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (Fall 2019) and National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (Spring 2020)

Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time exhibition and programs have been made possible in part by two major planning and implementation grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Caravans of Gold is also supported in part by Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Studies. An anonymous donor made possible the exhibition’s travel to the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Myers Foundations, The Alumnae of Northwestern University, the Robert Lehman Foundation, the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and The Evanston Arts Council, an agency supported by the City of Evanston. Special thanks to the Perucca Family Foundation and the Art Institute of Chicago for curatorial research support.

The exhibition publication is supported in part by Northwestern University’s Office for Research, Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, a gift from Liz Warnock to the Department of Art History at Northwestern University, and the Sandra L. Riggs Publications Fund at The Block Museum of Art.

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O P E N I N G DAY

Opening Day: Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time Saturday, January 26 Join us for the opening of an exhibition hundreds of years in the making!

Journey across Africa’s Saharan trade routes - a story of art, culture, and exchange stretching across the globe, and connecting the past with our time.

OPENING CELEBRATION Caravans and Crossroads: Art, Music, and Stories Open house throughout The Block, 10:30 AM – 1 PM Drop by The Block for an all-ages celebration inspired by Caravans of Gold and be among the first to experience the exhibition. Join Chicago artist Rhonda Wheatley in a hands-on activity exploring the powerful stories that objects tell. Experience live West African music and DJ sets throughout the museum featuring special guest, seventh-generation Jeli (griot) Morikeba Kouyate. A master of the kora, Kouyate translates the oral history and legends from medieval West Africa to the present day.

Right: Virgin and Child, ca. 1275–1300, France, Ivory with paint, 36.8 × 16.5 × 12.7 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 17.190.295; Left: Seated Figure, Possibly Ife, Tada Nigeria, Late 13th -14th century, Copper with traces of arsenic, lead, and tin, H. 54 cm, Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, 79.R18.

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OPENING CONVERSATION Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 2 PM “Africa is forcing those who will listen to reconsider the continent.” – Gus Casely-Hayford World-renowned speakers include Chris Abani, Nigerian-born novelist, poet, and essayist and winner of 2009 Guggenheim Award; Gus Casely-Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., and host of the BBC’s Lost Kingdoms of Africa. They will be joined by Caravans of Gold curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock, The Block’s Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and former curator of African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Taking up themes from the exhibition, this panel will consider the relationships among history, power, and imagination, and ask what trans-Saharan exchange from the distant past can tell us about movement and migration today. Jonathan Holloway, Provost of Northwestern University and Professor of History and African American Studies and Annelise Riles Executive Director of the Buffett Institute for Global Studies and Associate Provost for Global Affairs will provide welcoming remarks.

This program is generously supported by The Alumnae of Northwestern University.

Fulani, Senegal, Bead, 19th-20th Century, gold filigree. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund for African Art, 77.10.

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EXHIBITIONS

Isaac Julien: The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) January 26 – April 14, 2019 Alsdorf Gallery “[A] refined fusion of politics, history, and stunningly lush aesthetics.” – Artforum Isaac Julien’s renowned 2007 video installation, The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats), presents a lyrical and visceral meditation on histories of African migration. Combining exquisite cinematography with elements of documentary, dance, and musical performance, The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) juxtaposes all-too-familiar images of Mediterranean passage— bodies crowded in rafts, laid out in reflective blankets on Italian shores, drowning in tempestuous waters—with the tranquil spaces of European tourism and luxury.

Born in London in 1960 to Caribbean immigrant parents, Julien has crafted a singular and expansive body of work that moves effortlessly between experimental film and narrative cinema, theatrical exhibition and video installation. With characteristic formal beauty and critical depth, The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) synthesizes Julien’s longstanding examination of diasporic and postcolonial experience in a moving and humanistic 20-minute work.

Presented in conjunction with The Block’s Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, a groundbreaking exhibition on medieval African trade routes, The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) will be exhibited for the first time in Chicago. This cinematic masterpiece challenges viewers to contemplate the inequities of globalization and the cycles of displacement and violence that have bound Europe and Africa for centuries.

Exhibition funded through support of The Mary and Leigh Block Endowment and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

RELATED PROGRAM Cinema: Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien, 1991, UK, 35mm), Friday, March 15, 7 PM Right: Isaac Julien, Western Union Series No. 1 (Cast No Shadow), 2007. Above: Western Union Series No. 8 (Sculpture for the New Millennium), 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York © Isaac Julien.

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“The legacy of medieval trans-Saharan exchange has largely been omitted from Western historical narratives and art histories, and certainly from the way that Africa is presented in art museums. Caravans of Gold has been conceived to shine a light on Africa’s pivotal role in world history through the tangible materials that remain. They are the starting point for reimagining the medieval past and for seeing the present in a new light.”

-Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Curator of Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time

Abraham Cresques (1325–1387), Atlas of Maritime Charts (The Catalan Atlas) [detail of Mansa Musa],1375. Mallorca Parchment mounted on six wood panels, illuminated. Bibliothèque nationale de France. On view in exhibition as reproduction.

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“Write, draw, paint, design, film, compose, play.

Do it your own way. Do it for others and for yourself. But do it.”

-Morton Goldscholl THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART

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PRO G R A M S

Tyehimba Jess, courtesy of the author

LITOWITZ READING

Poetry Reading with Tyehimba Jess Thursday, January 31, 6 PM Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize–winning poetry collection, Olio (2016), presents the sweat and story behind America’s blues, work songs, and church hymns. Part fact, part fiction, Jess’s much anticipated second book weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African-American performers. Olio is an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes defeated attempts to minstrelize them. Tyehimba Jess’s. first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.” Olio, his second collection, was published by Wave Books in 2016 and received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Presented by the Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program.

ARTIST TALK

Avant Garde Africa: Manthia Diawara Thursday, February 7, 6 PM In conjunction with the screening of Malian filmmaker, art historian, and cultural theorist Manthia Diawara’s An Opera of the World, join us as we launch the first program in “Avant Garde Africa”—a programmatic series exploring the practices of African art makers, critics, and scholars whose work implodes expectations for “African art.” As practitioner and scholar, Diawara will reflect on issues that intersect with artistic practices in Africa and its extended diaspora today, followed by conversation with Performance Studies Professor D. Soyini Madison.

This two-night event includes the Wednesday, February 6 film screening of Diawara’s An Opera of the World (2017) [pg 21].

Presented by The Block Museum in partnership with the Program of African Studies.

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ARTIST TALK

Counter-Histories with Michael Rakowitz Wednesday, February 13, 6 PM Internationally acclaimed artist and Art, Theory, and Practice faculty member Michael Rakowitz explores culture as it is embodied in artifacts. In projects ranging from a recreation of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon to selling dates in an NYC storefront, he has used both food and material fragments to recreate and reimagine cultural and personal histories, particularly related to his Iraqi-Jewish cultural heritage. Drawing upon his own artistic practice and the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Rakowitz will consider cultural loss and removal as well as counter-histories and narratives in artistic practice. He will be joined in conversation by Kiersten Neumann, Curator at the Oriental Institute and Ann Gunter, Bertha and Max Dressler Professor in the Humanities, Presented by The Block Museum in partnership with the Departments of Art History and Art, Theory, and Practice, and the Oriental Institute.

DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY WARNOCK LECTURE SERIES

Joanne Pillsbury: Aztecs in the Empire City Wednesday, February 20, 5 PM Join Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for a discussion of the civic, national, and scholarly currents affecting the collection of ancient American art in the Gilded Age and the Met’s approach to collecting and exhibiting ancient American Art between 1877 and 1914.

Presented by the Department of Art History.

Michael Rakowitz in front of “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist” in Trafalgar Square. Photo by Caroline Teo, 2018.

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PRO G R A M S PANEL AND CONVERSATION

Nations of Migrants Thursday, February 28, 6 PM As explored in the exhibitions Caravans of Gold and The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats), nations around the world have long been shaped by migration. This program will examine urgent issues of migration in our current moment and their connections to our place in the US, Chicago, and Evanston. Drawing on the perspectives and ďŹ rst-hand experiences of economic migrants, international policy experts, and humanitarian organizations, we will consider issues such as the ethics of witnessing, self-reliance and resilience, and responsibility in a time of refugee crisis.

Through this discussion, we interrogate the legal, social, political, and human implications of our histories as nations of migrants.

This program is copresented by The Block Museum, the Program of African Studies, and Refugee Knowledge Hub, a community-based partnership providing leadership, knowledge, and support for refugees and asylees in our community.

West African migrants returning from Libya sit in Agadez, Niger, 2015. Photo by Issouf Sanogo/AFP/ Getty Images.

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GALLERY TALK

Research at the Crossroads: Inside the Exhibition Caravans of Gold Wednesday, March 6, 6 PM Experience Caravans of Gold through the perspectives of Art History PhD candidate Sarah Estrela, Archaeological Anthropology PhD candidate Dela Kuma, and Cultural Anthropology Archaeology PhD candidate Mariam Taher. The three scholars will discuss their research on subjects of identity, nationalisms, gender, and language and translation through a focus on objects within the exhibition, including a fifteenth-century Jewish prayer book.

POETRY WORKSHOP

Migration, Fragmentation, and Translation Wednesday, March 20, 5:30 PM All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop in conversation with two Block Museum of Art exhibitions: Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time and Isaac Julien’s groundbreaking 2007 video installation on histories of African migration, The Leopard. Together, we will read and discuss poetry of migration, fragmentation, and translation. In response to the exhibitions, participants will compose original poems exploring the experience of migration and the legacies various migrations have left behind. Maggie Queeney of The Poetry Foundation will lead the session. Space is limited. Registration is required.

Presented by The Block Museum in partnership with The Poetry Foundation.

Page from the “Blue” Qur’an, 9th-10th century. Ink, gold, and silver (now oxidized) on blue-dyed parchment, 11 3/16 x 15 in. (28.4 x 38.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Beatrice Riese, 1995.51a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1995.51a-b_back_IMLS_SL2.jpg).

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CA L E N DA R

January 16

Wednesday

7 PM

CINEMA Security Sound and Vision: Tony Cokes

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Friday

7 PM

CINEMA Migrating Berlin: Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls (2000)

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Saturday

10:30 AM

OPENING DAY Caravans of Gold Opening Celebration Music & Artmaking

2 PM

Opening Conversation

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Wednesday

7 PM

CINEMA

Thursday

6 PM

READING Poetry Reading with Tyehimba Jess

Friday

7 PM

CINEMA New Docs: Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)

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Saturday

1 PM

CINEMA Jane: An Abortion Service (1995)

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Wednesday

7 PM

CINEMA An Opera of the World (2017)

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CONVERSATION Avant Garde Africa with Manthia Diawara

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Friday

7 PM

CINEMA Migrating Berlin: Berlin Babylon (2001)

p. 18

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Wednesday

6 PM

ARTIST TALK Counter-Histories with Michael Rakowitz

p. 6

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Thursday

7 PM

CINEMA The Stepford Wives (1975)

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Friday

7 PM

CINEMA Migrating Berlin: Rabbit à la Berlin (2009) Wir bleiben hier (1990)

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Saturday

11 AM

FAMILY PROGRAM Tales of Art at The Block

p. 12

p. 18

p. 13

p. 22

p. 21

p. 12

February 1

Thursday

6 PM

p. 24

Soleil Ô (1970)

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p. 25

p. 22

p. 21

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Wednesday

5 PM

LECTURE Joanne Pillsbury: Aztecs in the Empire City

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Thursday

7 PM

CINEMA Migrating Berlin: Wings of Desire (1987)

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Friday

7 PM

CINEMA Technology Transformations: A Feminist History of the Supercut

p. 19

p. 30

p. 13

p. 19

p. 23

Wednesday

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Friday

7 PM

CINEMA What Time Is It There? (2001)

7 PM

CINEMA Isaac Julien: Young Soul Rebels (1991)

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Thursday

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Wednesday

6 PM

PANEL & CONVERSATION Nations of Migrants

5:30 PM

POETRY WORKSHOP Migration, Fragmentation, and Translation

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p. 26

p. 14

p. 27

p. 15

March TOURS 1

Friday

7 PM

CINEMA Made in Chicago: Princess Cyd (2017)

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Wednesday

6 PM

GALLERY TALK Inside Caravans of Gold

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Thursday

7 PM

CINEMA New Docs: Crime + Punishment (2018)

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Friday

6:30 PM

CINEMA Birthright: A War Story (2017)

p. 26

p. 15

Tuesday Curatorial Tours of Caravans of Gold 12 PM – 1 PM Jan 29 Feb 5, 12, 19, 26 Mar 5, 12, 19, 26

Sunday Docent Tours of Caravans of Gold p. 25

3 PM – 4 PM Feb 3, 10, 17, 24 Mar 3, 10, 17

p. 23

EXHIBITIONS

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Saturday

12 PM

FAMILY PROGRAM Tales of Art at The Block

p. 30

CINEMA Ilo Ilo (2013)

p. 23

January 26 – July 21 Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across

1 PM

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Thursday

7 PM

CINEMA Burn the Sea (2014)

Medieval Saharan Africa p. 5

January 26 – April 14 Isaac Julien: p. 21

The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) p. 8

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CINEMA

Migrating Berlin: Multinational Perspectives on Germany’s Years of Reunification Timed with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Northwestern doctoral candidates Evelyn Kreutzer and Esra Çimencioğlu present a series of stylistically diverse films that promise to shed new light on this crucial moment in European history. Migrating Berlin reveals fascinating “micro-histories” that unsettle established East/West narratives about this period of cultural and architectural transformation. With commentary by Northwestern faculty, visiting scholars, and filmmakers, these films demonstrate the urgency of returning to these neglected histories three decades on.

Presented with promotional support from The Goethe Institut.

Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls, 2000

Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls Friday, January 25, 7 PM

83 min Can Candan, 2000, USA/Turkey, digital

In 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and during the 30th anniversary of the guest worker treaty between Turkey and Germany, Turkish filmmaker Can Candan interviewed members of Berlin’s Turkish community, the largest minority living in post-Wall Berlin, about their experiences of the German reunification. This trilingual documentary explores larger issues in this new Germany such as migration, guest workers, cultural identity, belonging, and xenophobia.

(In Turkish, German, and English with English subtitles) In person: filmmaker Can Candan Presented with support from the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program.

Berlin Babylon Friday, February 8, 7 PM

88 min Hubertus Siegert, 2001, Germany, DCP

After Germany’s reunification and the decision to relocate the country’s capital to Berlin in 1990, the city faced one of the most sweeping architectural transformations in Western European history. Renowned urban planners and architects were challenged to design a new, futureoriented city while also honoring a past almost erased during and after World War II. Using archival and original footage, Hubertus Siegert presents both a documentary as well as a critical and poetic meditation on history itself. (In German with English subtitles)

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Rabbit á la Berlin Wir bleiben hier Friday, February 15, 7 PM

Bartosz Konopka, 2009, Poland/Germany, BetaSP 52 min Dirk Otto, 1990, Germany, digital, 32 min

The fall of the Berlin Wall affected many demographics in different ways, demanding people adjust to a new life in a post-communist world and reunified Germany. Bartek Konopka’s Oscarnominated documentary, Rabbit à la Berlin, tells the allegorical story of Berlin’s wild rabbit population, which had inhabited the death zone of the Wall, and reflects on various forgotten, ignored, or marginalized peoples during and after the Cold War. Dirk Otto’s Wir bleiben hier (We’re staying here) is centered on the peculiar situation of Vietnamese immigrants in eastern Germany after the fall of the Wall. The largest immigrant group in an otherwise homogeneous East German population, they suddenly found themselves in an undefined limbo when their work and residence permits were not valid in the new Germany. (In German with English subtitles)

Wings of Desire Thursday, February 21, 7 PM

130 min Wim Wenders, 1987, Germany, DCP

In Wim Wenders’s iconic Berlin film Wings of Desire, two invisible angels (played by Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander) watch and listen in on the city’s diverse population. Wandering through the city, they encounter many different people and their intimate thoughts and feelings. Wings of Desire is an audio-visual tour de force of immense poetic power, with the ever-present Berlin Wall as an icon of grief. Often read as an allegorical precursor to Berlin’s reunification a few years later, the film figures the desire for human connection in a city of architectural and psychological isolation.

(In German with English subtitles)

Wings of Desire, 1987

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CINEMA

Soleil Ô, 1970

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Personal Passages: African Filmmakers in Europe Personal Passages responds to the concurrent Block exhibitions Caravans of Gold and Isaac Julien: The Leopard (Western Union: Small Boats) through a series of films that illuminate 20thand 21st-century migrant experiences across the Mediterranean. While dozens of films have been made by European filmmakers addressing the challenges faced by refugees and immigrants to Europe, the films in this series, made by Tunisian, Mauritanian, and Malian emigré filmmakers, all provide more intimate perspectives on displacement and diaspora.

Soleil Ô Wednesday, January 30, 7 PM

98 min Med Hondo, 1970, France/Mauritania, DCP

One of the most important works of post-colonial cinema, Med Hondo’s Soleil Ô confronts the racism and exploitation of French society through the eyes of a Mauritanian immigrant worker in Paris. Working independently on a tight budget, Hondo refracts his own experiences—and his deep insight into centuries-old structures of oppression—through an ironic and subversive sense of humor. Unseen for years, this formally audacious, politically galvanizing film has recently reemerged thanks to restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna, the George Lucas Family Foundation, and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation; it has lost none of its power, or its relevance, since it first appeared in 1970. (In French and Arabic with English subtitles) Restoration funded by the George Lucas Family Foundation and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project.

An Opera of the World Wednesday, February 6, 7 PM

70 min Manthia Diawara, 2017, Portugal/USA/Mali, digital

A world-renowned scholar, filmmaker, and theorist of cultural hybridity, Manthia Diawara left Mali at the age of 19, emigrating to France and later to the United States. He returned to Mali in 2008 to film rehearsals for Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera, which tells the story of northward migration.

Diawara frames this moving performance with interviews (including discussions with filmmaker Alexander Kluge, novelist Fatou Diome, and sociologist Nicole Lapierre), personal commentary, and archival footage that documents the cycles of migration throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The result is a cinematic essay as free-ranging and inspiring as the borderless society he imagines. In person: filmmaker Manthia Diawara Brûle la Mer (Burn the Sea) Thursday, March 14, 7 PM

75 min Maki Berchache and Nathalie Nambot, 2014, France, 35mm

The 2011 collapse of the Ben Ali government in Tunisia prompted a mass exodus of so-called harragas (literally, “border burners”) to Europe. One of these migrants was a young hospitality worker, Maki Berchache, who collaborated with French filmmaker and activist Nathalie Nambot on this poetic and intimate experimental documentary. Shooting on Super 8 and 16mm film, Berchache and Nambot gather together the memories, reflections, dreams, and fears of the migrant community in France, imagining cinema as a space of connection and collective practice within an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile landscape. (In French and Arabic with English subtitles)

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CINEMA

Reproductive Systems: Gender, Power, and Society The Block continues its year-long series of programs inspired by One Book One Northwestern’s 2018–2019 selection, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, with films that engage the theme of reproduction. Programmed with the support of the Northwestern Women’s Center, Reproductive Systems brings together documentaries, narratives, and experimental films that interrogate the complex structures of social and biological reproduction and their effects on women’s lives.

Birthright: A War Story, 2017

Jane: An Abortion Service Saturday, February 2, 1 PM

58 min Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy, 1995, USA, 16mm

In the four years before the Roe v. Wade ruling made abortion legal in the United States, a clandestine organization of Chicago women offered low-cost, safe, and confidential services to over 11,000 women—the Jane Collective. This invaluable oral history tells that story through the words of women who founded, operated, and used the service. Directors Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy skillfully entwine archival footage and forthright testimony to situate Jane alongside parallel movements for peace and civil rights, emphasizing the extraordinary sense of responsibility and commitment that the work demanded. The result is a revelatory and inspiring document.

The Stepford Wives Thursday, February 14, 7 PM

115 min Bryan Forbes, 1975, USA, 35mm

Joanna Eberhart experiences a major culture clash when she moves from New York City to the all-too-perfect town of Stepford, Connecticut where the women all keep their houses immaculate and the men all belong to a secretive club. Based on Ira Levin’s (Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys from Brazil) novel, The Stepford Wives’s blend of suspense and social critique paved the way for films and television like Black Mirror and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. The Stepford Wives will be introduced

by Helen Thompson, Northwestern Professor of English and faculty chair of One Book One Northwestern, who will discuss the film’s relationship to the Ira Levin novel on which it is based.

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Technology Transformations: A Feminist History of the Supercut Friday, February 22, 7 PM This screening traces histories of gendered reproductions in media through the form of the “Supercut.” A viral video genre, supercuts compile multiple instances of a single theme, utterance, cliché, or image from pop culture sources. Pairing early feminist supercuts by artists such as Dara Birnbaum, with contemporary works by such artists as Natalie Bookchin and Jennifer Proctor, this program reveals how the supercut offers a powerful tool for remixing the social reproduction of gender in media from cinema to YouTube. Filmmaker Jennifer Proctor will join Professor of English James Hodge for a conversation after the screening.

Birthright: A War Story Friday, March 8, 6:30 PM

105 min Civia Tamarkin, 2017, USA, digital

While access to abortion is often front and center in debates, the matter of choice is just one factor in a broad assault on the privacy and autonomy of women. This searing documentary, described as a real-lfe “handmaid’s tale,” provides a comprehensive overview of the “war on women.”

Anchored in the lived experiences of women whose access to reproductive healthcare has been regulated and restricted, the film builds on these testimonies to paint a shocking picture of the forces shaping women’s health policy. Director Civia Tamarkin will introduce the film, and will join Sekile Nzinga-Johnson, Director of the Northwestern Women’s Center, for post-film discussion.

Ilo Ilo Saturday, March 9, 1 PM

99 min Anthony Chen, 2013, Singapore, DCP

Winner of the Camera d’Or award for best first feature at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Anthony Chen’s engrossing and empathetic drama Ilo Ilo tackles the emotional and socioeconomic complexities of care work in the age of globalization. The story centers on Teresa, a Filipina domestic worker hired by a Singaporean family just before the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

Drawing on his own experiences, Chen looks incisively at inequities of class and gender in family dynamics and the delegation of domestic labor. (In Hokkien, English, Tagalog, and Mandarin with English subtitles)

The Stepford Wives, 1975

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CINEMA

Security Sound and Vision: Tony Cokes Wednesday, January 16, 7 PM In conjunction with the 2018–2019 Kaplan Institute for the Humanities Dialogue on the subject of “security.” The Block Museum welcomes acclaimed video artist Tony Cokes for a screening and discussion. Since the late 1980s, Cokes’s work has addressed questions of security by critiquing state-imposed forms of visibility, with a particular emphasis on marginalized communities and media technologies in the post-9/11 “War on Terror.” Drawing on his groundbreaking Evil series (2004–present), this screening explores the frictions between pop music and critical theory, political outrage and post conceptual cool, oppressive regimes of visuality and the subversive subcultures of electronic music.

Presented by The Block Museum with the support of the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.

Tony Cokes, Evil , Meditation, and Power, (installation view), Bergun Kunsthall, Bergen, 2016, Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali Gallery .

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Hale County This Morning, This Evening, 2018

New Docs The Block Museum’s ongoing New Docs series, presented with the MFA in Documentary Media, welcomes brand-new documentaries with filmmakers in person.

Hale County This Morning, This Evening Friday, February 1, 7 PM

76 min RaMell Ross, 2018, USA, DCP

This insightful, moving, and visually breathtaking documentary offers a glimpse into the emotional geography of African American lives in the South. Director RaMell Ross, an accomplished photographer and writer, was coaching youths in rural Alabama when he met Daniel and Quincey, two young men whose diverging paths into adulthood provide the inspiration for Hale County.

From 2012 to 2017, Ross followed their experiences, and those of the community surrounding them, with an eye attuned to the rhythms and quiet revelations of day-to-day existence. Edited with a lyrical, rather than narrative sensibility, Hale County This Morning, This Evening has been celebrated as a creative breakthrough in nonfiction filmmaking, garnering major awards at Sundance and the Full Frame Film Festival. In person: filmmaker RaMell Ross.

Crime + Punishment Thursday, March 7, 7 PM

112 min Stephen Maing, 2018, USA, DCP

Stephen Maing’s powerful documentary follows NYPD officers who fought against the department’s illegal quota system which disproportionately affects communities of color. While the film is focused on a single department in a particular part of the country, the film’s subjects provide a glimpse into the much larger need for justice reform in the United States. In person: filmmaker Stephen Maing.

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CINEMA

Cinema Selections Special single-screening selections for Winter 2019 What Time Is It There?

Wednesday, February 27, 7 PM

116 min Tsai Ming-Liang, 2001, Taiwan/France, 35mm

Droll, deadpan, and deliberate, Tsai Ming-Liang’s What Time Is It There? was instantly recognized upon its 2001 release as a landmark of contemporary world cinema and has only grown in poignancy since. The film follows parallel stories of isolation and longing in an era of globalization. Hsiao Kang is a street vendor living with his recently widowed mother in Taipei; Shiang-Chyi is a young woman who buys a dual-time watch from him before traveling to Paris.

As Hsiao Kang begins to obsessively change every clock he sees to Paris time, Shiang-Chyi struggles to find human connection in an unfamiliar city. Tsai’s laconic, long-take style yields rich rewards for attentive viewers, delivering gorgeous images, wry humor, and a rare depth of feeling.

Corey Byrnes, Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Culture at Northwestern University, will introduce the film. (In Mandarin, Taiwanese, and French with English subtitles) Made in Chicago: Princess Cyd Friday, March 1, 7 PM

96 min Stephen Cone, 2017, USA, DCP

As a child, Cyd lost her mother. Years later, while preparing to apply for college, she moves in with her aunt in Chicago for the summer. As the summer passes by, Cyd gets wrapped up in her aunt’s life while exploring her own identity. Writer/director (and Northwestern faculty member) Stephen Cone lends a deeply personal and sensitive perspective to his entry in the coming-of-age drama genre. In person: filmmaker Stephen Cone and crew from the film

Princess Cyd, 2017

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Rear Window, 1954 Young Soul Rebels, 1991

Young Soul Rebels, 1991

Isaac Julien: Young Soul Rebels Friday, March 15, 7 PM

105 min Isaac Julien, 1991, UK, 35mm

After a decade making experimental film and video as part of the Sankofa Collective, Isaac Julien took a detour into narrative feature filmmaking in 1990 with Young Soul Rebels, a vibrant and intersectional portrait of late-70s British musical subculture. Following Chris and Caz, two pirate-radio soul DJs who stumble upon a tape documenting the murder of one of their listeners, Young Soul Rebels daringly tackles issues of race, class, sexuality, and violence during a period of social upheaval in the UK; it’s also saturated with incredible music, fashion, and period detail. An essential entry in the “New Queer Cinema” of the early 1990s, Young Soul Rebels remains one of Julien’s most accessible and personal films.

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LEARN WITH US

Caravans of Gold Sunday Afternoon Tours Select Sundays, 3 PM

Explore the exhibition Caravans of Gold with The Block Museum’s student docents.

These free, informal tours kick off in the museum lobby at 3 PM and can be tailored to the questions and interests of those attending. Tours typically last 45 min.

Caravans of Gold Tuesday Lunchtime Tours Select Tuesdays, 12 PM Take part in a walk-through of the Caravans of Gold exhibition led by a member of the curatorial team and learn more about the creation of this groundbreaking exhibition.

These free tours kick off in the museum lobby. Tours typically last 45 min.

February 3 February 10 February 17 February 24 March 3 March 10 March 17

January 29 February 5 February 12 February 19 February 26 March 5 March 12 March 19 March 26

A selection of medieval excavated ďŹ nds from Essouk-Tadmekka, including fragments of glazed ceramics, stone beads and semiprecious stones, Mali. Photograph by Sam Nixon, 2017.

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Students in a close-looking exercise at the Eloise W. Martin Study Center.

Schedule a Private Group Visit to Caravans of Gold Bring your group to The Block Museum for a free gallery tour of our current exhibitions. We are happy to work with you to plan a visit that meets your group’s needs and interests. All guided tours are led by Northwestern student docents, who come from a wide range of academic backgrounds, including art history, psychology, journalism, science, and engineering. On guided tours, our docents provide information about the works on view and also facilitate open discussion. If you would like to request a tour for your organization, please visit our website to complete a request form.

Visit our Eloise W. Martin Study Center We welcome scholars, classes, and researchers to our Eloise W. Martin Study Center to further explore The Block Museum’s permanent collection. To select works for your visit, you may search the online database or contact one of the curators. Appointments can be scheduled for Monday through Friday between the hours of 10 AM and 4 PM. To schedule your appointment, contact Collections and Exhibitions Coordinator Joseph Scott at 847.467.0734 or via email at printroom@northwestern.edu.

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LEARN WITH US

Young artists take part in a hands-on animation activity at The Block Museum, Photo Sean Su.

Family Storytelling: Tales of Art at The Block Saturday, February 16, 11 AM Saturday, March 9, 12 PM Museums are full of stories. Join us for read-aloud story zones and interactive activities designed to help you look closer and think deeper about the art on view at the museum. Come discover the stories hidden beneath the surface of the art at The Block and invent your own. Geared for children ages 3–8 but all are welcome. Space is limited and registration is required.

Let us know you’re coming! RSVP at http://bit.ly/BlockRSVP

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P U B L I CAT I O N

Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa The Block Museum and Princeton University Press Hardcover | 2019 | $65.00 | ISBN 9780691182681 | 304 pp. | 9 x 11 | 192 color illus.

The Sahara Desert was a thriving crossroads of exchange for West Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe in the medieval period. Fueling this exchange was West African gold, prized for its purity and used for minting currencies and adorning luxury objects such as jewelry, textiles, and religious objects. The publication Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time draws on the latest archaeological discoveries and art historical research to construct a compelling look at medieval trans-Saharan exchange and its legacy. Contributors from diverse disciplines present case studies that form a rich portrayal of a distant time.

Featuring a wealth of color images, this fascinating book demonstrates how the rootedness of place, culture, and tradition is closely tied to the circulation of people, objects, and ideas. These “fragments in time� offer irrefutable evidence of the key role that Africa played in medieval history and promote a new understanding of the past and the present.

AVAILABLE JANUARY 2019 Purchase at The Block Museum or online at www. press.princeton.edu THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART

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@nublockmuseum @nublockm useum e

40 Arts Circle D Drive rive Evanston, IL L 60208 2 847.491.4000 block-museum@northwestern.edu block-museum@no @ rthwestern.edu

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