Event Details
Date & Time:
Wed April 13, 2022
6 PM-7:30 PM
Location:
The Block Museum of Art
40 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Audience:
Open to the public, online
Details:
About the Program
On Collaboration
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.
Allison Glenn is a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists. Recently, she received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. The New York Times selected the exhibition as one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021.
This year, Glenn was listed as one of the 2022 ArtNews Deciders and on the 2021 Observer Arts Power 50 List. She is one of the curators for the Counterpublic triennial, opening April 2023 in St. Louis.
Dr. Kymberly Pinder is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art. As a scholar and a curator, Dr. Pinder teaches, writes and lectures on representations of religion, history and race in American Art, and has authored multiple books on the subject, most recently Painting the Gospel: Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago. She is also the editor of Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History. Her curatorial projects include "Necessary Force: Art of the Police State" and "Spreading the Gospel: Graffiti and the Public Space as Canvas."
As a mural scholar, Dr. Pinder has always been committed to community engagement and interdisciplinary initiatives. Working with different artists and local officials, she has taught courses that have led to the creation of murals in Chicago and Albuquerque. Previously, she was Provost and Senior Vice President of Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the Dean of Fine Arts and the museum director at University of New Mexico, and a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Jontyle Robinson, trailblazing, innovative art historian/curator received her doctoral degree in art history from the University of Maryland, College Park and was the first curator for both the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta and Tuskegee University’s Legacy Museum /Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site.
Her groundbreaking research on Archibald Motley at the Chicago History Center resulted in New York City’s Kenkeleba Gallery Three Masters: Archibald Motley, Eldzier Cortor, and Hughie Lee Smith. In 1991, the Chicago History Center, mounted The Art of Archibald John Motley, Jr from her decade-long research which was, also, the foundation for the Whitney Museum's exhibition Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist on view from October 2015-January 2016.
She curated/co-authored for the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art's contribution to the 1996 Olympics, Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists, the first exhibition /catalogue of contemporary African American women artists touring America. She is, presently, conducting research for the 30-year anniversary of Bearing Witness, an exhibition and catalogue called Revelations from Bearing Witness for 2026. Dr. Robinson was awarded a UNCF/Mellon Faculty Residency at the National Humanities Center to conduct research for this exhibition and catalogue.
Dr. Bridget R. Cooks, as Associate Professor, fills a joint appointment in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Art History at the University of California Irvine. Cooks' research focuses on African American art and culture, Black visual culture, museum criticism, film, feminist theory and post-colonial theory. In 2002 she earned her doctorate degree in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester. She has received a number of awards, grants and fellowships for her work including the prestigious James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History, and the Henry Luce Dissertation Fellowship in American Art. She has also curated several art exhibitions including "The Art of Richard Mayhew" at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, 2009-2010; Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California (2018) at the Pasadena Museum of California Art; and Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective (2019) at the California African American Museum (CAAM).
Prior to her appointment at UCI, she taught in the Department of Art and Art History and the Program of Ethnic Studies at Santa Clara University. She also served as museum educator for the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
About the Series
On Collaboration, Context, and Counterpoints: A Conversation Series on Museum Practice
A three-part series in Zoom:
- Wednesday, April 13 from 6-7:30pm CT
- Wednesday, April 20 from 6-7:30pm CT
- Wednesday, April 27 from 6-7:30pm CT
Guests may register for as many sessions they wish.
Originating at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, A Site of Struggle 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, curators, educators, and scholars will share their reflections in a three-part conversation series on museum practice, engaging communities with care, and exhibiting challenging material related to race, violence, and our shared histories.
Lead support for this program is generously provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu
