Kyle Stephan appointed as Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Block Museum of Art

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Kyle Stephan has been appointed Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. She will begin her tenure in August 2025.

Stephan’s breadth of experience as a curator, scholar and educator in global contemporary art, time-based media and interdisciplinary curatorial practice will inform and shape the role she will play in The Block’s exhibitions, collections and public engagement with modern and contemporary art.

Stephan brings over a decade of curatorial experience in visual and performing arts at cultural institutions across the U.S., Europe and Latin America. She joins The Block from the Harvard Art Museums, where she began as the Hakuta Family Nam June Paik Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow and was subsequently appointed as consulting curator in the division of modern and contemporary art. Her curatorial practice and scholarly research focus on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in contemporary art, with particular interests in global artistic practices during the Cold War, and art from Latin America and the Global South in the 20th and 21st centuries. She explores history and artistic innovation through a range of artistic forms, including photography, performance, conceptualism and time-based media.

“Kyle Stephan brings a dynamic vision for the future of modern and contemporary art at The Block,” said Lisa Corrin, Ellen Philips Katz Executive Director of The Block Museum. “Her commitment to broadening the narratives we explore through art, her embrace of collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches, and her dedication to fostering understanding of contemporary artistic practice make her an invaluable addition to our team and to Northwestern. We are thrilled to welcome her to The Block.”

At Harvard Art Museums, Stephan developed modern and contemporary art exhibitions and collection presentations focused on contemporary art since 1960. She curated "Wolf Vostell: Dé-coll/age Is Your Life," the first U.S. survey of the Fluxus artist, and contributed to the exhibition and publication “Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation,” which address artistic perspectives on globalization and national identity in post-1980 German art. Additionally, she expanded the museum’s representation of artistic voices with key acquisitions of works by Hito Steyerl, Iván Argote, Hannah Wilke and Charlotte Moorman. She also co-chaired the museum’s Time-Based Media and Digital Art Working Group.

Stephan was assistant curator for the groundbreaking exhibition “The Matter of Photography in the Americas” at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center. Challenging traditional photographic canons, the exhibition presented conceptual approaches to the photographic medium by artists from Latin America and its diasporas. Other curatorial projects include “We Live! Memories of Resistance at Occidental College,” an exhibition exploring migration and cultural memory through contemporary artistic practice, and “Histories of the Avant-Garde: Downtown New York,” a touring exhibition at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Centers in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia.

As an independent curator, Stephan has also organized exhibitions and live multimedia events at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo; ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany; Hayward Gallery in London; REDCAT at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and the British Film Institute in London, where she was a curator of film and experimental media art for five years.

In addition to her curatorial work, Stephan is an experienced educator, having taught at the University of Southern California and led object-based learning initiatives at Harvard Art Museums and Stanford University. She has designed and facilitated interdisciplinary courses on art history, media and performance, integrating museum collections into academic curricula. Her experience will support The Block’s role as a resource for faculty and students where the museum’s collection is activated as a vital tool for research, teaching and creative exploration.

“I am honored to join The Block Museum and Northwestern University at such an exciting time for contemporary art and curatorial practice,” Stephan said. “Northwestern provides an extraordinary environment for scholarly inquiry, artistic experimentation and meaningful engagement with faculty, students and the broader community. The museum’s commitment to interdisciplinary research, its engagement with global and local narratives, and its dedication to expanding the role of the academic art museum within the work of the research university align deeply with my own curatorial values. I look forward to collaborating with artists, scholars and students to develop projects that contribute to and catalyze dialogue across the University.”

Stephan holds a Ph.D. in art and art history from Stanford University and a B.A. in film studies and comparative literature from Indiana University. Her dissertation, “Cosmic Noise: Juan Downey and the Postcolonial Politics of Cold War Communication,” reflects her longstanding interest in the intersection of art, politics and technology in Latin America.

The Block Museum Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art position was established in 2017 through an endowment from Lisa (’86) and Steven Tananbaum, ensuring The Block’s ongoing commitment to presenting and studying the art of our time.

About The Block Museum of Art
The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is an engine for questioning, experimentation and collaboration across fields of study, with visual arts at the center. The museum activates art’s power as a form of insight, research and knowledge creation, making human experience visible and material. Fueled by a broad range of perspectives and ways of knowing, The Block creates shared encounters with art and one another to deepen understandings of the world and our place within it.