The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston is unveiling two new shows today featuring artwork by Leon Golub and Shirin Neshat. I saw Golub's traveling show, Live & Die, Like a Lion? at the Drawing Center in New York earlier this year. I'd long admired Golub's large scale paintings dealing with political issues, military imagery, torture, and social injustice, but I'd never seen the drawings he produced towards the end of his career before his passing in 2004.
These relatively small drawings (8"x10") were drawn with oil sticks and ink in an interesting combination of styles. They depict skulls, bodies, animals, and text. I also liked the inclusion in the show of collages and cut-out source imagery that Golub used as a basis for his drawings and paintings. This show will be very worth seeing. The Drawing Center also produced a really nice small catalog for this show, which should be available at the Block Museum.
The other show the Block Museum is presenting is an 11-minute video installation by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. Titled, Rapture, this installation is composed of two black and white videos projected opposite of each other depicting a group of men occupying a fortress contrasted with a video of women walking through a desert and approaching the same fortress. This video made for mesmerizing viewing when I first saw it at the Art Institute of Chicago some time ago.
Leon Golub: Live + Die Like a Lion?
and Shirin Neshat: Rapture
40 Arts Circle Drive
on the campus of Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
*Free admission*
Both shows will be on view from September 24 to December 12, 2010
