Press Coverage

The Block Museum is frequently featured in national, regional and local media. Read our most recent stories below:

 

The Art Newspaper Review: When Saharan sands glittered with gold (January 2019)

Bickford Berzock says that the relevance of medieval Saharan trade for present-day visitors to the exhibition lies in the fact that these are the "same routes used today by migrants avoiding conflict. We see so many issues of boundary building these days–who belongs where and why–but in medieval Africa, border crossing was constant." -Jason Foumberg

 

Evanston Magazine: The Buzz - Block These Dates (January 1, 2019)

An ambitious new exhibition will showcase the splendor and power of the lost kingdoms and commercial centers of Africa, using centuries-old artifacts from sites around the Sahara Desert and artwork from West and North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East that reveal the reach of Saharan networks, in a first-of-its-kind show. - Sherry Thomas

 

Splash Magazine: Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time Preview – Coming to Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art (January 5, 2019)

Caravans of Gold has emerged through an ongoing dialogue among a dedicated group of specialists from multiple disciplines and areas of regional focus. Four meetings with scholars and multiple research trips to Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria have aggregated knowledge and allowed debate about how to tell the story of medieval trans-Saharan exchange. - Barbara Keer 

 

This major show curated by and debuting at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, before it moves on to Toronto and Washington, D.C., will be the first to showcase the “splendor and power of the lost kingdoms and commercial centers” of medieval Saharan Africa using artifacts from the period. Included will be rare treasures on loan from African museums and the British Museum. - Steve Johnson

 

New City: Art Top 5 January 2019 Picks (January 1, 2019)

An ambitious exhibition of material culture from Medieval Africa revives a forgotten history of the continent’s prosperity and cultural wealth that had been elided by Eurocentricism. - Elliot Reichart

 

Chicago Magazine: 51 Things to Do in Chicago in January (January 1, 2019)

Mention the Middle Ages and most people think of the knights and castles of Europe, but this exhibit aims to reframe this fertile period through the countries of West Africa, where a robust culture produced exquisite gold filigree carvings, coins, tapestries, and sculptures. - Jason Foumberg