New York Times lauds exhibit launched at Block Museum

An exhibition on avant-garde artist Charlotte Moorman that originated at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art has received a glowing review in the New York Times. The exhibition was created by the Block in partnership with Northwestern University Libraries.

In the article, Holland Cotter, one of the most renowned and highly respected art critics, noted that Moorman had been largely forgotten by the art world after her death. But, he said, “…with the arrival of a superb biography by Joan Rothfuss, in 2014, and now these two shows -- which come from the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, where a vast Moorman archives resides -- the days of forgetting and misperceiving are over, and a foundational 20th-century art figure is revealed.”

Lisa Corrin, the Ellen Phillips Katz Director of the Block, said, “The role of the museum, especially one that is part of a major research university, is to do exhibitions that change the way history is written. We’re so proud that the work we’ve done with the University Libraries is receiving national and international attention and will ensure that Charlotte Moorman is never forgotten. Northwestern is extremely proud to be the home of the Charlotte Moorman archives, one of the most important of its kind in the world.”

The exhibition, “A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s,” was curated by a collaborative team including Corrin, Corinne Granof, Scott Krafft, Michelle Puetz, Joan Rothfuss and
Laura Wertheim Joseph. It ran at the Block from January to July this year and now is at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University before traveling to the Museum der Modern Salzburg in 2017. The New Yorker also recently took note of the influential exhibit.