Exhibition opening, “A Site of Struggle: American Art Against Anti-Black Violence,” curated by Janet Dees with assistance from PhD candidate Alisa Swindell
January 29, 2022
12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location
The Block Museum
Address
40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
Calendar
Download iCal File
How has art been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence within the United States?
Originating at Northwestern'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.
Images of African American suffering and death have constituted an enduring part of the nation’s cultural landscape, and the development of creative counterpoints to these images has been an ongoing concern for American artists. A Site of Struggle takes a new approach to looking at the intersection of race, violence, and art by investigating the varied strategies American artists have used to grapple with anti-Black violence, ranging from representation to abstraction and from literal to metaphorical. The exhibition focuses on works created between the 1890s and 2013—situating contemporary artistic practice within a longer history of American art and visual culture. It foregrounds African Americans as active shapers of visual culture and highlights how art has been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence.
Date posted
Jan 5, 2022
Date updated
Jan 5, 2022