Lisa Graziose Corrin

Lisa Corrin is the Ellen Philips Katz Director at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art. Under her leadership, the Block has become a dynamic teaching, learning and research resource for the University and its surrounding communities. Free and open to all, its acclaimed exhibitions present works of art that cross time, cultures and media, and travel internationally accompanied by award-winning publications. The Block’s exhibitions especially focus on subjects often overlooked by scholars and museums in order to redress the balance of history and transform mainstream narratives. The Block’s approach is collaborative and interdisciplinary, connecting art and artists to fields of study from law, engineering, and material sciences, to history, music, and performance. At the Block, art is also a springboard for discussions of contemporary issues and ideas.

Prior to her arrival at Northwestern in 2012, Corrin was the director of The Williams College Museum of Art. She has also served as the Deputy Director of Art at the Seattle Art Museum where she was the artistic lead for its Olympic Sculpture Park, an 8.5 acre waterfront park for art designed by Weiss Manfredi overlooking Puget Sound featuring art works by Louise Bourgeois, Mark Dion, Teresita Fernádez, and Richard Serra, amongst others. Corrin has curated or co-curated over 50 exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, most recently about Charlotte Moorman, the performance artist and muse to avant-garde creatives in the 1960s-1970s named in The New York Times one of the top ten nationally in 2016. While the Chief Curator at London’s Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, one of Europe’s premiere exhibition venues for current art, she organized exhibitions of renowned artists including: William Kentridge, Brice Marden, Chris Ofili, Bridget Riley, Rachel Whiteread, and Chen Zhen to cite a few. She also curated the first British retrospective of Félix González-Torres, which was spread across London including its Underground, and Give & Take, an exhibition presented simultaneously at the Serpentine with Hans Haacke and the Victoria and Albert Museum with artists from around the world. Her career began as the founding curator of Baltimore’s The Contemporary, where she curated African American artist Fred Wilson’s landmark installation, Mining the Museum, awarded the American Association of Museum “Exhibition of the Year” and named one of the “50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art.” Its associated publication was awarded the Wittenborn Prize. Corrin is a frequent lecturer, moderator, and panelist on topics regarding the contemporary art, museum practice, and public art. She is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of College and University Art Museums, and The Art Club Chicago. She was appointed to the Evanston Arts Council in 2018 by Mayor Steve Haggerty, and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and numerous other entities.