Pop América - Exhibition Press: Block Museum - Northwestern University
Skip to main content

Pop América - Exhibition Press

Media coverage of the exhibition Pop América, 1965-1975  running at The Block Art Museum September 21, 2019 to December 8, 2019

Art and Object
Now at the Block Museum at Northwestern University, Pop América examines the decade from 1965 to 1975, a period of political turmoil and social dissent in Latin America. This was a period exploding with visuals—a world of signs and icons of both abundance and catastrophe—and artists quickly mined the political potential of this new media, with all its anarchic sensibilities.”
Claire Voon, November 25, 2019
Chicago Tribune
Pop América” includes a disarmingly colorful selection of sculptures, prints, paintings and film from artists located across América. Keep the accent, as América here follows its Spanish usage, meaning North, Central and South America as a single unbroken continent, plus the Caribbean Islands. The geography can be dizzying, traveling from Brazil to Argentina to Colombia to Cuba to Peru, then up to Mexico and, yes, the United States, but that’s part of the excitement of a survey exhibition of art you may not have even known existed. It’s just the beginning.”
Lori Waxman, November 18, 2019
F News Magazine
That little accent above the “e” in “Pop América,” the title of the Block Museum of Art’s exhibition on view through December 8, does so much more than translate the title into Spanish and Portuguese. It makes a point to look south — all the way down to Tierra del Fuego — and therefore understand the region as a whole....The work in “Pop América” is now half a century old — yet it maintains its relevance.”
Luis Lopez Levi , November 7, 2019
WTTW: Chicago Tonight
"Pop Art gets reframed in a new museum show that looks closely at the visual culture of the 1960s and ‘70s – and sheds light on an entire hemisphere of artwork that really pops."”
Marc Vitali, October 17, 2019
Rebellious Magazine
"As temperatures drop this fall and winter, Chicagoans can pop into warm and welcoming galleries to discover a variety of art forms generated from 1919 to 2019."”
Janet Arvia, October 6, 2019
Chicago Sun Times
Pop art was not just a phenomenon in the United States and Great Britain. This touring exhibition, co-organized by Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art and the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, offers the first unified look at permutations of the movement across Latin America and ties them into what was happening farther north.”
Kyle MacMillan, September 13, 2019
The Daily Northwestern
Pointing to the title of “Pop América,” the exhibition’s curator Esther Gabara reveals a message behind the accent over the letter ‘e’. “It declares independence from the United States’ long presumption of ownership of the world, as well from the troubled history of the idea of Latin America,” said Gabara.”
Aaron Wang, October 3, 2019
The Daily Northwestern
“There’s a playful quality to a lot of the work in the exhibition,” Granof said. “But there’s also a lot of work that has this stronger political edge and are responding to economic conditions, social conditions, political conditions. So it’s really this rich and nuanced look, a broad look at these artists who are working in the syntax of pop and then making it their own.””
Wilson Chapman, September 25, 2019
Michigan Avenue Magazine
“It’s going to be bold, bright and interesting too, because it’s pop art that people just aren’t as familiar with,” says Corinne Granof, Block’s curator of academic programs”
Kyle Macmillan, September 2019
St. Louis Public Radio
Despite the wide appeal of Pop art's engaging imagery, the broader public remains unaware of the participation and significant contribution of Latin America and Latino/Latina artists working at the same time and alongside their U.S. and European counterparts. The exhibition at the Nasher is the first exhibition with a hemispheric vision of Pop. The exhibition has made a timely and critical contribution to a more complete understanding of this artistic period.”
Nancy Kranzberg, August 5, 2019
BE Latina
Latin pop is finally getting its due, after years of being boxed out of the mainstream.”
Kat McCue, June 28, 2019
All City Canvas
Se trata de una exposición de casi cien obras de varios artistas pop de latinoamérica. Exponentes de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, México, Perú, Puerto Rico y también de Estados Unidos. A partir de sus obras expuestas se introducen marcos históricos que nos harán replantearnos algunos datos sobre el pop. Sobre todo, en esta parte del continente”
Karla Mariana Huerta, April 22, 2019
Hyperallergic
From Third World Liberation movements and interracial intimacies to lived and aestheticized experiences of exile and diaspora, the exhibition showcases what remnants and resonances — improbably, imperceptibly, spectrally, or spectacularly — gets through.”
Brenna M. Casey, April 12, 2019
Indy Week
Pop América contains pieces that are a rare treat to see in North American museums, including works by avant-garde sculptor and illustrator Felipe Ehrenberg and a slide projection by experimental theater actor and conceptualist Juan José Gurrola. ”
Laura Jaramillo, April 10, 2019
Duke Today
"The exhibit also marks the 50th anniversary of social unrest throughout the Americas, a time when artists used Pop to resist dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina, to support the Cuban Revolution, to criticize aggressive state modernization and violence in Mexico and Colombia, and to battle for civil rights in the United States. Pop América will open in October 2018 in San Antonio, Texas, at the McNay Art Museum, which is partnering with the Nasher Museum to stage the exhibition. After visiting the Nasher, it will travel to the Block Museum at Northwestern University."”
September 28, 2017
The Economist
"The 2018 Sotheby’s Prize will be shared by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (MCA) and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, two American institutions that are planning shows of under-represented areas of art history. “Many Tongues: Art, Language and Revolution in the Middle East and South Asia” curated by Omer Kholeif , a Cairo-born scholar who is now at the MCA, will open in October 2019. “Pop América: 1965-1975” will open in October 2018 at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, before moving to the Nasher Museum and then on to the Block Museum at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois almost a year later."”
F.R., September 28, 2017