On Collaboration, Context, and Counterpoints

Originating at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence explores 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. The Block Museum exhibition will tour to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama August 13–November 6, 2022.

In conjunction with this exhibition, a national group of curators, educators, and scholars will share their reflections on museum practice, engaging communities with care, and exhibiting challenging material related to race, violence, and our shared histories. The three-part online conversation series is free and open to the public.

On Collaboration
Wednesday, April 13, 6–7:30pm CT, Zoom RSVP
This conversation features reflections on curatorial approaches to collaborating with communities—those within and outside of the museum—and shaping a shared vision around exhibitions engaging with the issue of racial violence.

With Allison Glenn, curator and writer, co-curator of Counterpublic triennial; Kymberly Pinder, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art; and Jontyle Robinson, Curator & Assistant Professor, The Legacy Museum, Tuskegee University. Moderated by Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies and Department of Art History, University of California Irvine.

On Context
Wednesday, April 20, 6-7:30pm CT, Zoom RSVP
This conversation focuses on a case study of the exhibition, Reckoning with “The Incident”: John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural. The panelists explore considerations around its presentation, campus and community engagement, and programmatic strategies at three academic art museums located in different regions of the country. 

With Maurita Poole, Director of the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, former Director and Curator of the museum at Clark Atlanta University; Molleen Theodore, Associate Curator of Programs, Yale University Art Gallery; and Tilly Woodward, Curator of Academic and Community Outreach, Grinnell College Museum of Art. Moderated by Lucy Mensah, Assistant Professor of Museum and Exhibition Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Art & Art History. 

On Counterpoints
Wednesday, April 27, 6–7:30pm CT, Zoom RSVP
This conversation focuses on exhibition-making as a form of activism, the presentation of counternarratives, and efforts to incite institutional change.

With La Tanya S. Autry, Cultural Organizer and Independent Curator, Black Liberation Center and Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, Community Engagement Officer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Moderated by Alisa Swindell, Associate Curator of Photography at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College and former Block Museum Curatorial Research Associate for A Site of Struggle.

On Collaboration, Context, and Counterpoints: A Conversation Series on Museum Practice is organized by the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University. Lead support for this event is generously provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.