WUSTL School of Design & Visual Arts News

Outstanding Graduate Tingting Wu: Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts-Architecture

Liam Otten — 2012-05-16 00:00:00

David Kilper

Wu, a native of Shanghai, China, has a strong interest in blending the natural landscape with the cultural landscape.

Chouteau’s Landing is one of St. Louis’ oldest neighborhoods, located on the Mississippi Riverfront, just south of the Gateway Arch. Before the Civil War, it was a busy commercial and residential hub. Today, it is largely blighted, cut off from downtown by a spaghetti tangle of bridges and interstates.

Yet the area retains certain advantages, says Tingting Wu, who will graduate May 18 with a master’s degree in architecture from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

In addition to river access — a surprisingly rare commodity in this famous “river city” — Chouteau’s Landing boasts a wealth of historic structures and a massive retaining wall bedecked with a decade’s worth of legally sanctioned graffiti art. More fundamentally, these depopulated streets, fronting the temperamental Mississippi, represent the intersection of two powerful forces: what Wu calls “natural wilderness” and “cultural wildness.”

“I was struck by the vines growing from the small cracks of the giant graffiti wall,” Wu says.

The image captured the way nature reasserts itself despite decades — and even centuries — of human intervention.

Yet Wu remained conflicted. “Is this something we’ve achieved, or is it something we lost?”

This spring, Wu sought to reconcile such questions with her thesis project, a large-scale redevelopment plan. Titled “Entropic Infrastructure,” it follows a series of recent civic efforts, notably the Confluence Greenway, a system of riverfront parks and recreation areas; and CityArchRiver 2015, which aims to improve connections between the Mississippi, the Arch grounds and downtown.

But Wu’s proposal is notable for its conceptual elegance and for amplifying, rather than bulldozing, ground conditions. For example, in a nod to the graffiti wall, she designed a series of triangular, folded concrete pavilions to house cafes, restaurants and other amenities. Exteriors would be draped in vegetation; interiors would be available to graffiti artists.

“The graffiti comes this way, and the natural landscape comes that way,” she says, interlacing her fingers for emphasis. “When they come together, it becomes the building and the project.

“From the Arch grounds, one sees the flow of cultural wildness,” she adds. Facing toward the Arch, “one sees the transition of natural wilderness to manicured landscape.”

Art and landscape: For Wu, it’s a fitting intersection, both thematically and personally.

Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Wu credits her father, Zhiren Wu, an accomplished amateur craftsman and student of Chinese literature, with instilling a love for the arts.

She drew and painted from an early age, developing a particular facility for landscapes.

As an undergraduate at Shanghai’s Fudan University, Wu studied biomedical engineering but missed the challenge and creativity of hands-on design. After graduation, she interned for a pair of Chinese architectural firms and then enrolled in the Sam Fox School’s Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design.

“Architecture is unique because it can change how people think and live,” she says, but adds that the aesthetics of an individual structure are less important than its relationship with its surroundings.

“I don’t think architecture is an isolated practice. It is always connected to landscape or environment.”

“I have continuously admired Tingting’s work since she entered the program,” says Kathryn Dean, the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor of Architecture and director of the graduate school.

“Tingting has an extraordinary sensitivity to the subtle nuances of both people and places. More importantly, she uses her gifted eye to reveal a new way of seeing the world.”

Following Commencement, Wu will move to New York City, though she hopes eventually to return to China.

“Architecture in China is very different from here,” Wu says.

In the Shanghai of her youth, “you saw buildings going up everywhere, every day, at a very quick pace,” she says.

All too often, that pace threatened to overwhelm local traditions and craftsmanship — just as blithe urban renewal once crippled neighborhoods like Chouteau’s Landing.

“China has a very long history and culture,” Wu says. “I think that architecture can work in a more thoughtful and responsible way.

“I want Chinese architecture to think about the future.”

Wind in their sails

2012-05-15 00:00:00

More than a dozen architecture students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts tested a series of experimental handmade kites along the windy slopes of Art Hill in Forest Park April 26. The kites were designed and built as part of an undergraduate studio on architectural representation led by Sung Ho Kim, associate professor of architecture. All photos by Kevin Lowder/WUSTL Photo Services..

Fashion Show 2012: A night of glitz and glamour

2012-05-14 00:00:00

Mary butkus

It was a night of glitz and glamour for an audience of more than 200 in Plaza Frontenac April 29 for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ 83rd annual Fashion Design Show. Titled Leaving a Legacy, the show was coordinated by Jennifer Ingram, the W. H. Smith Visiting Assistant Professor of Fashion, and featured dozens of models wearing scores of outfits by the Fashion Design Program’s nine seniors and 10 juniors. A slideshow is at right, with all photos by Mary Butkus. For more fashions, visit the Sam Fox School Facebook page.

Outstanding Graduate Mara MacMahon:Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts-Art

Diana Lutz — 2012-05-11 00:00:00

David Kilper

MacMahon with the Caledonian boar she rigged for her senior project.

In the Italian Renaissance, artists seeking a more lifelike portrayal of the human figure went so far as to skin or dissect human bodies to better examine the muscles.

Mara MacMahon, who graduates May 18 with a bachelor’s of arts in biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and of fine arts in communication design from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, continues this tradition but in a medium beyond the ken of the Renaissance masters.

She uses the anatomical knowledge gained from dissections to “rig” animated characters that pounce or flounce in a believable way.

“The character is initially modeled in a neutral pose,” she says, “but it has to look great when it’s running around. My job is to set up the controls so that the animator who wants a character to, say, extend an arm, can just click on the control for the wrist and pull the wrist outward and the other muscles will flex or extend realistically.”

She chose WUSTL because she was passionate about art but also interested in medicine, and few schools are strong in both.

Here, she was able to dissect a dogfish and a cat in a vertebrate structure course offered by the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences.

“A lot of art anatomy books you buy,” she says, “it’s all surface anatomy. You see the shapes and how things maybe fit together visually, but you don’t understand how they work or what happens when you flex a muscle. So taking an anatomy class was very helpful to me.

After that, she arranged to shadow the medical students in their anatomy course. “I brought my sketchbook and drew as they dissected cadavers,” she says.

As she was struggling to choose between medicine and illustration, a thrilling third possibility appeared. She saw a Pixar internship posted on Facebook.

Feeling not quite qualified for the internship, she waited a year to apply so that she could take an introduction to 3D animation class taught by Jon Navy, senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School.

“I later found out,” she says, laughing, “that I was only one with who sent (Pixar) just a flatwork portfolio and no DVD reel of motion.”

Navy thinks he knows why she got the internship. “Mara is fascinating to everybody in animation because her knowledge of anatomy is way beyond what they usually get. Do I dare say she’s kind of a Leonardo? She’s so strong both in science and in art.”

MacMahon credits Navy and her communication design professors, Doug Dowd, Jeff Pike and John Hendrix, for giving her the artistic chops she needed to succeed.

The Pixar internship turned out to be a crash course on filmmaking — lectures, demos and a mini-assignment scheduled for critique by the end of the first week.

After returning to WUSTL, MacMahon kept momentum going by taking independent study with Navy and reaching out to the online community when sticky challenges arose.

In her junior year, she applied for an internship at Disney, telling herself that if she didn’t get a summer job in film she would go to medical school.

By Commencement, she still had not heard from Disney, but that night, at midnight, Disney emailed an internship offer.

Of course she called her mom. And no she didn’t wait until a civilized hour.

She was hired as the technical director responsible for constructing a character rig and establishing how muscle, skin, hair, fur and clothing will behave.

She had direct access to top animation professionals at Disney and clearance to look at the character rigs for Tangled, an animated feature Disney had just released.

“I probably learned 80 percent of what I now know about rigging over the summer,” she says.

She also learned how much work goes into film. Working flat-out full-time nonstop the entire two months, the team of 12 interns was able to pull together a super-short film in which Little Red Riding Hood’s basket is filled and she sets off into the forest.

And when the mini film was screened at Disney, the professionals gave the interns a big round of applause.

Here is the demo reel she is currently sending around to studios:

http://youtu.be/IDe6j_7K8HAMara MacMahon's demo reel

Students display handmade books at Kranzberg Studio

2012-05-11 00:00:00

Sid Hastings (2)

Above: Visitors to the 15th annual open house of the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book review handmade books on display at the May 1 event in Walker Hall. The studio — where students learn traditional techniques for bookbinding, letterpress and alternative print processes, and publication design — is a collaboration between the Sam Fox School's College of Art and University Libraries. During the open house, students display their work from the academic year and compete for the Nancy Award, which recognizes outstanding student achievement in book design. The 2012 winner is art graduate student Emily Squires, who will receive a master of fine arts degree at Commencement May 18. Below: a book created by a WUSTL student is displayed at the open house.

2012 MFA Thesis Exhibition opens at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum May 4

2012-04-30 00:00:00

Jieun Kim, St. Louis Dreamscape, 2012. Water-based pigment and Flashe paint on Korean paper mounted on wood panel, and vinyl. Courtesy of the artist.

Washington University in St. Louis' Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will present its annual MFA Thesis Exhibition in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum from Friday, May 4, through Monday, Aug. 6.

Curated by Meredith Malone, associate curator at the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition will feature projects by 23 graduating master of fine arts candidates in the Sam Fox School’s Graduate School of Art.

Also opening May 4 will be Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction in the 1950s: Building the Collection at Washington University in St. Louis. Curated by Karen K. Butler, the museum’s assistant curator, the exhibition highlights the tenure of the distinguished Renaissance scholar Frederick Hartt, who served as curator from 1949-1960.

Both exhibitions are free and open to the public and open with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum.

In addition, Patricia Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Bush Professor in Art and director of the Graduate School of Art, will lead a free walkthrough of the MFA exhibition at 7 p.m. Friday, June 8.

Immediately following Olynyk's talk will be a musical performance by Scarlet Tanager (8:30 p.m.) and an outdoor screening of Art School Confidential (10 p.m.).

Exhibiting MFA artists are: Ifeoma Ugonnwa Anyaeji, JE Baker, Natalie Baldeon, E. Thurston Belmer, Lauren Cardenas, Megan Sue Collins, Adrian Cox, Maya Durham, Erin Imena Falker, Jieun Kim, Howard Krohn, Robert Long, Marie Bannerot McInerney, Nikki McMahan, Michael T. Meier, Katie Millitzer, Reid G. Norris, Kathleen Perniciaro, Emily Squires, Jamie Presson Wells, Whitney Lorene Wood, Andrew James Woodard and Kelly K. Wright.

The Kemper Art Museum is located on WUSTL’s Danforth Campus, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction in the 1950s at Kemper Art Museum May 4

2012-04-27 00:00:00

Marsden Hartley, The Iron Cross, 1915. Oil on canvas. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. University purchase, Bixby Fund, 1952. Hi-res image available upon request.

During World War II, as a young lieutenant and Renaissance scholar, Frederick Hartt was assigned a jeep and a driver and charged with locating, securing and repatriating hundreds of works of art. He later chronicled the experience in Florentine Art under Fire (1949), the first book of his long and storied career.

Less well known is Hartt’s engagement with American abstraction. As a professor and curator at Washington University in St. Louis from 1949-1960, Hartt helped build one of the nation’s finest university collections of 20th-century modernism.

This summer, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will highlight Hartt’s tenure with Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction in the 1950s: Building the Collection at Washington University in St. Louis.

Organized by Karen K. Butler, the museum’s assistant curator, Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction will feature 27 paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture by Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Lyonel Feininger, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and many others.

Also included will be a handful of Renaissance and Baroque works, reflecting Hartt’s own scholarly interests as well as his conception of the museum as a teaching institution.

Florentine Art under Fire

As a monuments and fine arts officer for the Allied Military Government in Florence, Hartt skirted landmines and a retreating enemy while searching for priceless artworks that had been removed from the museums and churches of central and northern Italy.

“Hartt contributed mightily to the protection and preservation of Italy’s incomparable patrimony, as well as helping to track down more than $500 million dollars worth of stolen art,” says William Wallace, PhD, the Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History and Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, who first met Hartt as a college senior.

“To encounter Botticelli’s Birth of Venus stacked against the wall of a gloomy stone cellar, along with innumerable other masterpieces,” Wallace says, “was a life changing experience that launched a storied career.”

Art of the time

After the war, Hartt completed his doctorate and, in 1949, arrived at WUSTL, where he succeeded the distinguished art historian Horst W. Janson. Over the next decade, Hartt would publish books on Botticelli (1953) and Giulio Romano (1958) as well as an important article on the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1950).

Hartt also was appointed curator of the university art collection. Founded in 1881, the collection had been assembled, historically, by collecting the art of the time. Janson, who’d served as curator from 1944-48, was the first to extend that mandate to modernism, purchasing 40 works by many of Europe’s leading artists. Hartt, building on Janson’s framework, expanded the focus to include American abstraction.

“For Hartt, who saw the devastating consequences of World War II firsthand, large-scale gestural abstraction was the aesthetic form that most captured the qualities of the postwar human condition,” Butler says. “Although he celebrated its American qualities — particularly its emotional intensity and scale — he saw its formal roots in European modernism.”

Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction

Hartt’s acquisitions largely fall into two groups: works by early practitioners of abstraction, whom he called “the pioneers”; and works by the post-war generation of New York artists associated with abstract expressionism.

Representing the pioneers will be two seminal examples of early modernism: The Iron Cross (1915) by the American Marsden Hartley, and Brücke I (Bridge I) (1913) by the future émigré Lyonel Feininger. Both works were created in Germany, thus linking thematically to Janson’s focus on European cubism, constructivism and surrealism.

Also included will be Stuart Davis’s Max #2 (1949) and Arthur Dove’s Sand and Sea (1943), which combine modernist form and subject matter with distinctly American iconography.

The abstract expressionists are represented by a series of major works, which Hartt acquired at the rate of approximately one per year. These include Willem de Kooning’s Saturday Night (1956) and Philip Guston’s Fable I (1956–57), each purchased shortly after completion.

Also on view will be Arshile Gorky’s large-scale Golden Brown Painting (1943–44) and one of Jackson Pollock’s final paintings, Sleeping Effort (1953), as well as a series of five Pollock screen prints.

The Resurrection

In addition to contemporary abstraction, Hartt's acquisitions include El Greco’s The Resurrection (c. 1600–05), an important Renaissance painting that arguably, in its subordination of image to form, anticipates both modernism and expressionism. Hartt also acquired a small selection of Renaissance and Baroque drawings, each chosen for its ability to demonstrate a particular artistic theme or technique.

Notable among these is Peter Paul Rubens’s Parade of the Captured Chiefs (1600–08), copied from a work by Giulio Romano, the subject of Hartt’s dissertation. Other drawings include Giovanni Grimaldi’s two-sided Landscape with Tower and River Scene with Boats, and Luca Cambiaso’s Penitent Magdalene (c. 1570–1580).

Also on view will be Parnassus, a swiftly executed wash by an unidentified 16th-century French artist; and Two Female Figures, an academic study by an unidentified 16th-century Italian artist.

Rounding out the exhibition will be Hartt’s own Royal HH Typewriter. Custom ordered in pastel pink with cream-colored keys, it was the instrument on which Hartt composed much of his influential scholarship.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is committed to furthering critical thinking and visual literacy through a vital program of exhibitions, publications and accompanying events. The museum dates back to 1881, making it the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. Today it boasts one of the finest university collections in the United States.

Support for Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction was generously provided by James M. Kemper Jr., the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation and the William T. Kemper Foundation.

Frederick Hartt and American Abstraction in the 1950s: Building the Collection at Washington University in St. Louis will open with a public reception at 7 p.m. Friday, May 4, and will remain on view through Aug. 27. Both the reception and the exhibition are free and open to the public.

The Kemper Art Museum is located on the Danforth Campus, immediately adjacent to Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards.

Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The Museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

‘Bridging gaps’ between graduate and professional students

Susan Killenberg McGinn — 2012-04-24 00:00:00

Sid Hastings

Brooke B. James (center), an MBA student in Olin Business School, accepts congratulations for winning the Community Service Individual Award during the Graduate Professional Council’s 2011-12 Bridging GAPS awards ceremony, held April 9 in the Danforth University Center. At right is her father, Bill James.

Graduate student groups and individual leaders at Washington University in St. Louis who help “bridge the gaps” between graduate and professional students from diverse areas of study throughout WUSTL’s seven schools were recognized during a recent awards ceremony and reception.

The Graduate Professional Council’s (GPC) Bridging GAPS (Graduate and Professional Students) Awards Ceremony was held April 9 in the Danforth University Center’s Goldberg Formal Lounge.

The GPC holds the annual ceremony to recognize the important role that graduate student leadership plays in enhancing interdisciplinary endeavors and strengthening the graduate student community on campus.

The awards also recognize exceptional work in bringing people together not only from across the university, but also throughout the St. Louis community.

The awards include the Community Service Award for outstanding commitment through service events or projects; the Diversity Award for furthering the diversity initiative at the university; the Professional Development Award for promotion through research, professionalism or career development; and the Sustainability Award for development of programs or projects that promote sustainability.

Leadership Awards also are given to a faculty or staff leader for promoting the ideals of Bridging GAPS through interschool communication and collaboration and to a graduate student leader for outstanding commitment to leadership in the graduate student community.

“It is difficult enough for graduate students to keep up with their classes and conduct their research thoroughly, so when students go outside of their classrooms or labs to participate in community service activities or professional development organizations, they deserve to be commended,” says Peggy P. Ni, GPC treasurer and a member of the Bridging GAPS Committee.

“Furthermore, the graduate students and student groups that are honored in the Bridging GAPS Awards Ceremony have even gone above and beyond that, actively engaging in cross-campus collaboration with individuals and groups in schools other than their own to make this campus a more interactive and better place,” says Ni, who is a PhD candidate in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

The 2011-12 Bridging GAPS award winners are:

Community Service Individual Award: Brooke B. James, an MBA student in Olin Business School
Community Service Group Award: Olin Cares, a graduate organization in the Olin Business School
Diversity Individual Award: Emily J. Squires, a master’s student in the Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Diversity Group Award: I-CAN (International Graduate Student Association for Career Development and Networking), a university-wide graduate student group
Professional Development Individual Award: Maggie S. Majors, a PhD candidate in Germanic languages and literatures in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and Jennifer C. Greenfield, a PhD student in the Brown School
Professional Development Group Award: Association for Women in Science, St. Louis chapter, WUSTL PhD Student Leadership
Sustainability Invidividual Award: Dan K. Conner, an MBA student in Olin Business School
Sustainability Group Award: Office of Sustainability Graduate Student Intern Group
Faculty/Staff Award: J. Aaron Hipp, PhD, assistant professor in the Brown School
Graduate Student Leader Award: Teresa L. Ai, a PhD student in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Richard J. Smith, PhD, dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the Ralph E. Morrow Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology, spoke during the awards ceremony.

Nick E. Miller, GPC president and a PhD candidate in English in Arts & Sciences, and Nina M. Parikh, Bridging GAPS chairperson and a master’s student in public health in the Brown School, also spoke during the event.

Nominations for Bridging GAPS awards are accepted from across the graduate community.

For more information about the Graduate Professional Council or the Bridging GAPS awards, visit gpc.wustl.edu.

Diversity and Inclusion Grants awarded

Susan Killenberg McGinn — 2012-04-24 00:00:00

A project to support Washington University in St. Louis faculty and staff who work with students from underrepresented minority groups and an internship program for underrepresented minorities that could lead to a career in a technology field are among the winning proposals of the university’s Diversity and Inclusion Grants program for 2011-12.

The Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants has awarded eight grants totaling nearly $174,000 to Washington University faculty and administrators for initiatives that improve the university environment for women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

Faculty and administrators submitted 16 proposals for program initiatives that strengthen and promote diversity and inclusion at WUSTL. Diversity includes differences in gender, race, ethnicity, geography, socioeconomic status, age, politics, philosophy, disability and sexual orientation.

The Office of the Provost funds the Diversity and Inclusion Grant program. Now in its third year, the program has awarded almost $600,000 in grant money for 29 projects.

Funding for the selected projects is one-time only, and awards range in size up to a maximum of $30,000.

“We are continuing to get innovative and ambitious proposals that themselves reflect the diversity of interests in making our campus more inclusive,” says Adrienne D. Davis, JD, vice provost and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law and co-chair of the Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants. “I think of the grants as democratizing diversity.”

“The quality of the proposals was impressive, and I am hopeful that these grants have the potential to significantly enhance diversity on campus,” says Kathleen B. McDermott, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences and the advisory committee’s co-chair.

The project team leaders of the winning proposals, amounts awarded and project titles are:

Timothy J. Bono, PhD, assistant dean in the College of Arts & Sciences and lecturer in the Department of Psychology, $22,000 for “Supporting Faculty and Staff Who Work With Students of Color.”

Koong-Nah Chung, PhD, associate dean and director of medical student research in the School of Medicine, $30,000 for “Training of Meharry Medical College Medical Students in the Washington University School of Medicine’s Summer Research Program.”

Heather L. Hageman, director of educational planning and program assessment and director of the standardized patient program in the Office of Education at the School of Medicine, $19,450 for “Train-The-Trainer Program on Inclusion.”

Denise R. Hirschbeck, assistant vice chancellor for Information Services and Technology, $30,000 for “Expanding Diversity in Technology: Internship Program for Staffing Technology Positions on Campus.”

Panos Kouvelis, PhD, the Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management, senior associate dean and director of executive programs, and director of the Boeing Center for Technology, Information & Manufacturing at the Olin Business School, $30,000 for “Olin Business School Women’s Leadership Forum.”

Peter B. MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and associate professor of architecture, $12,350 for “Empowering Faculty, Staff, and Administrators to Support the Integration of International Graduate and Professional Students into Departmental Communities.”

Leah A. Merrifield, executive director for academic-civic engagement in the Office of Government and Community Relations, $12,000 for “Community Guide to Washington University AND the St. Louis Region.”

Michael W. Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development and director of the Center for Social Development, and Molly Tovar, EdD, director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, both at the Brown School, $18,113 for the “Interdisciplinary Leadership Summit for Faculty, Staff, and Students at Washington University.

Hageman and MacKeith were winning project leaders last year as well.

Bono, who is collaborating on “Supporting Faculty and Staff Who Work With Students From Underrepresented Backgrounds” with Diana Hill, PhD, an assistant dean in the College of Arts & Sciences and lecturer in the Department of Psychology, says their project is intended to provide insight into the experiences of minority students so that faculty and staff who work with them can have a greater understanding of the most appropriate kinds of support they can offer their students as well as the particular times during the semester when that support is most needed.

“The findings have the potential to benefit academic advisers, program managers in the First Year Center, and student group advisors in Campus Life,” Bono says.

“For example, there are faculty and staff advisers for the Association of Black Students and Association of Latin American Students. However, there has been relatively little research conducted to govern the work of faculty and staff who work with these populations. We hope to provide that,” Bono says.

Hirschbeck’s project proposal includes recruiting and training talented individuals in underrepresented groups to learn and use technology skills in a structured business environment.

She says that the goal of her team’s project is to create a framework for on-the-job training and employment of individuals who either have traditionally found it difficult to enter the technology field or for whom a career in technology was not presented to them as an option.

“The Diversity and Inclusion Grant program is an important way for Washington University faculty and administrators to make a difference in promoting diversity and inclusion on campus,” Hirschbeck says.

“Our team feels very fortunate to have been selected to receive this grant. By reaching out to high school graduates and members of the WU community, we will provide a path for individuals who may feel that a career in technology is unattainable,” Hirschbeck says.

“A successful program will result in the recruitment and retention of a diverse group of employees and the delivery of university applications that employ the use of newer technology, including mobile friendly web pages and ‘apps.’”

Other members of the Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants are:

Iver Bernstein, PhD, professor of history, of African and African-American studies and of American culture studies, all in Arts & Sciences;
Naomi Daradar Sigg, assistant director of student involvement and leadership in the Office of Student Activities;
Dayna Early, MD, professor of medicine in the School of Medicine;
Robert G. Hansman, associate professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts;
Vetta L. Sanders-Thompson, PhD, associate professor of public health in the Brown School; and
Jay R. Turner, PhD, associate professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

For more information, visit diversity.wustl.edu.

Sam Fox School presents annual alumni awards

2012-04-23 00:00:00

The Korundi Concert Hall in Rovaniemi, Finland, designed by Juhani Pallasmaa, who will recieve the 2012 Dean's Medal from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts April 26. Photo by Rauno Träskelin.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis honored seven outstanding architecture and art alumni at its fifth annual Awards for Distinction dinner April 26.

The awards recognized graduates who have demonstrated creativity, innovation, leadership and vision through their contributions to the practices of art, architecture and design, as well as to Washington University and the Sam Fox School.

This iconic promotional poster for the film E.T. was created by Intralink Film Graphic Design, the film marketing company founded by art alumnus Anthony Goldschmidt.

In addition, architect Juhani Pallasmaa, Architect SAFA, Hon. FAIA, Int FRIBA, of Helsinki, Finland, received the 2012 Dean’s Medal, which honors an individual whose extraordinary contributions have elevated the fields of art, architecture and design.

Distinguished architecture alumni for 2012 were Ann Meredith Rolland, AIA, LEED (BA ’80/MArch ’82) and Stephen Yablon, AIA, LEED AP (BA ’75), both of New York. In addition, John Kleinschmidt (BA ’08) and Andrew Sternad (BA ’09) of New Orleans received the Young Alumni Award.

Distinguished art alumni for 2012 were Paul Dillinger (BFA ’94) of San Francisco and Anthony Goldschmidt (BFA ’65) of Los Angeles. Aaron A. Duffy (BFA ’06) of Brooklyn, N.Y., received the Young Alumni Award.

The awards ceremony took place at the Coronado Ballroom.

Awards for distinction honorees

Paul Dillinger (BFA ’94)
San Francisco

Dillinger is senior director of global design for Levi Strauss & Co.’s Dockers brand. There, he has launched two new collections—K-1 by Dockers and The Art of Khaki — and sought to develop sustainability in both supply chain and design process.

He previously worked as a fashion designer and brand development specialist at fashion houses in New York, including Calvin Klein and DKNY, and in 2005 launched the Martin + Osa brand for American Eagle Outfitters. The first Fulbright Scholar in fashion design, he also holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy.

Anthony Goldschmidt (BFA ’65)
Los Angeles

Goldschmidt is founder and president of Intralink Film Graphic Design, an industry-leading creative motion picture marketing company. After earning his MFA from Yale University, Goldschmidt began his career in 1967 as an art director at J. Walter Thompson in New York and as a production assistant at Warner Bros.

In 1979, he founded Intralink, the first creative design group to offer integrated print and audio-visual materials for motion picture marketing. Projects range from campaigns for E.T., The Color Purple and The Da Vinci Code, among many others, to design and branding of the 2012 Academy Awards.

Ann Meredith Rolland, AIA, LEED (BA ’80/MArch ’82)
New York

In a career focused almost exclusively on the design of cultural and educational buildings, Rolland has extensive experience in the renovation and expansion of existing buildings — primarily in the New York City region — transforming spaces into new environments that enrich, enliven and reflect the singular personality of each institution.

As a principal of FXFOWLE, which she joined in 1997, Rolland has led the development of its 25-person Cultural/Educational Studio from its inception and also serves on the firm’s Steering Committee. In addition, Rolland has worked with the Department of City Planning, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and other New York City agencies in developing compliant yet forward-thinking solutions.

Guest Pavilion, Sullivan's Island, SC, designed by architecture alumnus Stephen Yablon.

Stephen Yablon, AIA, LEED AP, (BA ’75)
New York

Yablon is founder and partner-in-charge of Stephen Yablon Architect (SYA), a New York-based office widely recognized for open, light-filled and carefully detailed spaces that respond to context and encourage social interaction.

SYA has designed institutional and commercial facilities as well as residential projects for a wide range of clients, including Columbia University, the City of New York, New York University’s Langone Medical Center and Sony. Some of the firm’s most notable work has involved public projects for underserved communities, including two created under the auspices of New York’s Design and Construction Excellence program.

Young Alumni Award

Aaron A. Duffy (BFA ’06)
Brooklyn, NY

Duffy is a partner and creative director at 1stAveMachine — which works with ad agencies and brands to create video, digital and experiential content across media platforms — and co-founder of the firm’s “alter-ego,” the mixed media animation studio SpecialGuest.

His numerous awards include first place at the Stuttgart International Trickfilm Festival, as well as bronze, silver and gold at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. His work has been inducted into MoMA’s archive for The Art and Technique of the American Commercial, and he was featured in AdAge’s “Creativity Awards Report 2011” as one of the top 10 commercial directors.

John Kleinschmidt (BA ’08)
Andrew Sternad (BA ’09)
New Orleans

Kleinschmidt and Sternad are intern architects at Waggonner & Ball Architects in New Orleans, where they have focused primarily on water management, infrastructure and spatial planning projects for the region.

As leaders in Dutch Dialogues, the firm’s pro bono water planning advocacy effort, the pair has worked with multidisciplinary teams of Dutch and American experts to re-envision New Orleans as a delta city that incorporates water into its urban planning strategies. They are actively involved in facilitating New Orleans-based projects for the Sam Fox School and have exhibited speculative proposals and interactive installations dealing with water and landscape in the Mississippi Delta.

Dean's Medal

Juhani Pallasmaa, Architect SAFA, Hon. FAIA, Int FRIBA
Helsinki, Finland

A distinguished architect, educator and critic, Pallasmaa is a leading international figure in contemporary architecture, design and art culture. Since 2008, he has served on the jury for the Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

From 2001-03, Pallasmaa was the Sam Fox School’s Raymond E. Maritz Visiting Professor of Architecture and he continues to work with students in the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design’s international semester program in Helsinki.

In 2006, the Sam Fox School’s Peter MacKeith edited Encounters – Architectural Essays, a collection of Pallasmaa’s writings. Other books include The Embodied Image (2011), The Thinking Hand (2009), The Architecture of Image (2001) and The Eyes of the Skin (1996), the latter now a standard text in studios and seminars around the world.

Pallasmaa’s Helsinki-based practice has completed notable projects around the world, including the SIIDA Museum in Inari, Finland, an ethnographic museum and exhibition space for the Sami peoples of Northern Scandinavia; and renovations of the Finnish Institute in Paris and the Rovaniemi Art Museum in Finland.

Other major projects include collaborating on the design of the International Moscow Bank, which received the Russian Federation Architecture Award in 1996, that country's most prestigious architectural honor.

Pallasmaa is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has received the Finnish State Architecture Award (1992); the Helsinki City Culture Award (1993); the Fritz Schumacher Prize (Germany, 1997); and the Jean Tschumi Prize for Architectural Criticism, International Union of Architects (1999), among other honors.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

The Sam Fox School is a unique collaboration in architecture, art and design education. Offering professional studio programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, the Sam Fox School links four academic units — the College of Art, College of Architecture, Graduate School of Art and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design — with the university's nationally recognized Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

For more information about the awards, contact Aly Abrams at (314) 935-7223 or aly.abrams@wustl.edu. For more information about Sam Fox School, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Exploring the American Dream

2012-04-17 00:00:00

What is the American Dream’s role in today’s society? Experts from Washington University in St. Louis will explore this question in a panel discussion at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in Brown Hall Lounge on the Danforth Campus.

Panelists are:

Steven Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics in Arts & Sciences;
Carter W. Lewis, playwright-in-residence in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences; and
Mark R. Rank, PhD, the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the Brown School.

Fazzari, an expert on macroeconomics, and Rank, an expert on poverty, are currently teaching the popular course “The Economic Realities of the American Dream.”

Over the past few years, Rank has interviewed people from all walks of life for an upcoming book on the tenuous nature of the American Dream in today’s society. Lewis is working with Rank to adapt some of these interviews for the stage.

Following comments from the panel, Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean of the Brown School and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, will lead a discussion with the audience.

The Brown School Alumni Association is hosting the event, which is free and open to the public.

To register, email reism@wustl.edu or (314) 935-4780.

Richard Sennett on ‘Architecture of Cooperation’

2012-04-12 00:00:00

Cover image from Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation by Richard Sennett. Frances Johnston, "Making a Staircase," Hampton Institute, undated glass-plate. Photograph (c) The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by  SCALA / Art Resource, NY.

****** THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES ******

Learning to live with people unlike ourselves — racially, ethnically, religiously or economically — is arguably the most urgent challenge facing civil society today.

Yet much of modern life, from talk radio to homogenous neighborhoods to the self-segregation of social media, encourages the us-against-them politics of the tribe, rather than the more cooperative spirit of the city.

Richard Sennett. Portrait by Thomas Struth.

In his latest book, Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (2012), the distinguished sociologist and urban theorist Richard Sennett examines why this has happened and what might be done about it.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, Sennett will present the Sam Fox School’s annual Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture.

The free talk — titled "The Architecture of Cooperation" — is co-sponsored by the Brown School and takes place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. A reception for Sennett will precede the lecture at 6 p.m.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Beginning with his first book, The Uses of Disorder, in 1970, Sennett has explored the ways individuals and groups make social and cultural sense of material facts — about the cities in which they live and about the labor they do.

In Together, Sennett contends that cooperation is a craft, and the foundations for skillful cooperation lie in learning to listen well and discuss rather than debate. He traces the evolution of cooperative rituals from medieval times to today, and in situations as diverse as slave communities, socialist groups in Paris and workers on Wall Street.

Sennett is author of more than a dozen books, including The Hidden Injuries of Class (1972), which studies how working-class identities are shaped in modern societies; The Conscience of the Eye (1990), a work focusing on urban design; and Flesh and Stone (1992), a general historical study of how bodily experience has been shaped by the evolution of cities.

Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture

This endowed lecture honors Eugene J. Mackey Jr., a distinguished architect who practiced in partnership with Joseph Murphy, former dean of the School of Architecture.

Among other projects, Mackey and Murphy designed John M. Olin Library and collaborated with R. Buckminster Fuller on the design of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Climatron.

The Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture brings significant patrons of architecture to campus. Past lecturers have included Gerald Edelman, Thomas Krens, Jorma Ollila, Emily Pulitzer, Richard Jackson, Eric J. Cesal and Alan Webber.

83rd annual Fashion Design Show April 29

Liam Otten — 2012-04-10 00:00:00

Double or Nothing, a large installation of woven sticks, branches and saplings by acclaimed artist Patrick Dougherty, makes a fitting backdrop for original dresses and gowns by graduating seniors in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Fashion Design Program. Pictured is a taupe wedding dress by Ariel Baugh, inspired by abstract sculptures of birds and modeled by Antonia Isabella of the Barbizon Modeling Agency. All photographs by Jennifer Silverberg. Download hires version.

“As a designer, you want to make your statement,” says Jennifer Ingram, the W. H. Smith Visiting Assistant Professor of Fashion in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. “You want to inspire, you want to motivate, you want to communicate some type of emotion.”

Those ambitions and more will be on full display at Plaza Frontenac April 29 when Leaving a Legacy, the Sam Fox School's 83rd annual Fashion Design Show, hits the runway. The fully choreographed show will feature dozens of models wearing scores of outfits created by the program’s nine seniors and 10 juniors.

But this year’s show also speaks to one legacy in particular. It marks the retirement of Jeigh Singleton, who began teaching at Washington University in 1972 and has directed the Fashion Design program since 1987.

“Jeigh is one of a kind — a legendary instructor,” says Ingram, a fashion alumna who studied with Singleton before graduating in 2004. She spent several years working in the fashion industry before returning to campus last fall.

“He’s always been a mentor for me,” Ingram says. Indeed, in creating her own lines, “I still go to Jeigh for advice. What’s missing, how can I make this my own, what does it need to push the drama?

“Jeigh is all about drama,” she adds with a smile.

This wedding gown by Jung Hyun Lee was inspired by the wave-like shapes of abstract sculptures, here expressed as a cascade of folds. Model is Shameeka Greene of the Barbizon Modeling Agency. Photo by Jennifer Silverberg. Download hires version.

‘Glitz and glamour’

As a student, Ingram participated in the program’s 2003 and ’04 fashion shows, both held at St. Louis Galleria.

“I loved the glitz and the glamor of it,” she says. “There’s just something about seeing your garments go down that runway, with professional models, lighting and production. That’s what I want to bring to Leaving a Legacy.”

And though the title certainly honors Singleton, Ingram says, it also celebrates the accomplishments of the students, particularly the graduating seniors.

“Each of these designers puts a distinctive stamp on everything they do,” she says. “They make the patterns, drape the muslin, choose the fabrics.

“This show is their statement.”

Program

Leaving a Legacy will open with fall dress groups — four apiece by each of the nine seniors, for a total of 36 looks. Inspirations range from geometry class and the Arts & Crafts movement to “The Flirty Thirties” and the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Next, the junior class will present fall suiting on the theme of “Basic Training,” after which the seniors return with winter coats inspired by the 1940s. Other groupings will highlight knits, spring separates and gowns.

Concluding the show will be the seniors’ signature collections, each a fully coordinated clothing line tailored to a specific audience and based on a specific theme. Inspirations this year range from “Egyptian Gilt” and “Daughters of the Earth” to “Elemental Style” and “Spring Nouveau.”

All clothing is selected by a jury of university faculty and local design professionals. Guest judges for 2012 included Project Runway alumna Laura Kathleen; image specialist Ellen Soule; and Janey Brauer Thompson, co-owner of Berrybridge Bridal.

This ballgown of transparent tulle by Corissa Santos features a bodice with navy blue pleated bands and a 50's-length skirt beneath. Model is Heather Rice of the Barbizon Modeling Agency. Photo by Jennifer Silverberg. Download hires version.

Tickets and times

Leaving a Legacy will begin at 7 p.m. Sunday, April 29, at Plaza Frontenac. Tickets are $65 for general seating, or $50 for students.

Tickets are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office, (314) 935-6543, and metrotix.com. A limited number will be available at the door.

In addition, special reserved seating is available for $150, with proceeds going to support the fashion program.

Preceding the show, at 6 p.m., will be a reception featuring experimental garments by Jamie Presson-Wells, a fashion alumnus and current master’s candidate in the Graduate School of Art, and by sophomore Madeleine Docherty.

A meet-and-greet with all designers will immediately follow, at 8 p.m.

For more information, call (314) 935-6500 or email samfoxschool@wustl.edu.

Organizers and co-sponsors

Leaving a Legacy is chaired by alumna Susan Block (BFA ’76) and co-hosted by Block and Saskya Emmink–Byron, director of communications for Craft Alliance.

Stylists are led by Dominic Bertani of the Dominic Michael Salon, who has done the models’ hair for the past 20 years. The models’ makeup will be done by Shiseido Cosmetics, led by Sheila Molina, and by students from The Paul Mitchell School. Footwear is provided by Brown Shoe Company and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Lighting, audio and runway tech is by Trent Joyce of Technical Productions. DJ is Doug Curtis of Clockwork Productions.

Outstanding student designers receive a variety of scholarships, cash prizes and awards. The Dominic Michael Silver Scissors Designer of the Year Award is presented to one outstanding senior at the end of the evening. Block sponsors the Silver Ripper Award, presented to one outstanding junior.

Inland Symposium: CST April 12 and 13

Liam Otten — 2012-04-05 00:00:00

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the Inland Visual Studies Center at Bradley University will present the third annual Inland Symposium: CST, examining arts and culture in the American Midwest, April 12 and 13.

From the galleries of New York to the backlots of Hollywood, visual culture in the United States is often defined as coastal and urban. Yet historically, large numbers of artists and designers have emerged from the unique population, landscape and economy of the American Midwest.

On Thursday and Friday, April 12 and 13, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis will host Inland Symposium: CST, the third annual Inland Visual Studies Center symposium.

Titled for the abbreviation of Central Standard Time, Inland Symposium: CST will investigate contemporary cultural production in the Midwest and examine the region’s contribution to national and global visual arts and culture.

Patricia Olynyk

“There’s this notion that the Midwest is a place to which one brings culture,” says organizer Patricia Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art, "but that culture isn't generated here.

"The situation doesn't flatten into anything quite so simple,” adds Olynyk, an internationally exhibited artist who has lived on the west coast and overseas but also spent eight years at the University of Michigan before joining the Sam Fox School in 2007, as director of the Graduate School of Art.

Yet such perceptions nevertheless shape conversations about art “between the coasts.” Even among inland advocates, she says, “the discourse is still from the perspective of the marginalized.”

Olynyk prefers a more positive tack.

“In my experience, the Midwest is a great place to make work,” she says. “The benefits are obvious.” She points to the low cost of living, the affordable studio space and the general pace of life. “I can get into the studio for extended periods of time.”

Moreover, as a kind of national crossroads, “the Midwest is a place that one comes into and out of,” she says. “The relationship between the local and the global works very well.”

For Inland Symposium, Olynyk and co-organizer Paul Krainak, director of the Inland Visual Studies Center, have recruited more than a dozen artists, curators and writers from across the Midwest. Sessions will explore the production, exhibition and reception of contemporary art in the region, as well as the influence of timing and travel on artists living and working there.

Keynote speakers will be Stephanie Smith, deputy director and chief curator of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; and Barbara Jaffee, PhD, associate professor of art history at Northern Illinois University.

All events are free and open to the public but advance registration is required. For more information, call (314) 935-9300; e-mail samfoxschool@wustl.edu; or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

The Inland Visual Studies Center is the only academic program specifically seeking to theorize a more authentic and complex cultural identity of Middle America and to analyze the Midwest's contributions to national and global art.

Located at Bradley University in Peoria, the center is supported by the Sam Fox School, Ohio State University and the Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria.

Schedule of Events:

Thursday, April 12

5 p.m.
Keynote lecture: Barbara Jaffee
Welcome remarks: Carmon Colangelo
Introduction: Buzz Spector
Steinberg Auditorium

6:30 p.m.
In The Heart Of The Heart Of The Country
Opening reception for exhibition featuring work by MFA students from the Sam Fox School's Graduate School of Art
4191 Manchester Ave.

Friday, April 13

9 a.m.
Panel No. 1: Place Discourse
Moderators: Paul Krainak and Robert Gero
Panelists: Barbara Jaffee, Jack Becker, Buzz Spector and Jessica Baran
Kemp Auditorium, Givens Hall

11 a.m.
Panel No. 2: Show Me: The Delights and Drawbacks of Contemporary Exhibitions in the Midwest
Moderator: Dominic Molon
Panelists: Martin Brief, Deb Sokolow and Dana Turkovic
Kemp Auditorium, Givens Hall

2 p.m.
Mildred Lane Kemper Museum tour
With curators Meredith Malone, Karen Butler and Robert Gero

2:45 p.m.
Panel No. 3: Time Travel: Production in the Midwest
Moderator: Irena Knezevic
Panelists: Jimenez Lai, Joerg Becker, Patricia Olynyk and David Hart
Kemp Auditorium, Givens Hall

4:45 p.m.
Keynote lecture: Stephanie Smith
Introduction: Patricia Olynyk
Steinberg Auditorium

6 p.m.
Panel No. 4: Sculpting & Exhibiting Under the Influence
Moderators: Joan Hall and Ron Fondaw
Panelists: Marilu Knode, Bill FitzGibbons, Rusty Freeman, Noah Kirby and Anna Hegarty
Kemp Auditorium, Givens Hall

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, alum Mike Peters to deliver Commencement address

Susan Killenberg McGinn — 2012-03-28 00:00:00

Courtesy photo

Mike Peters, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial cartooning and creator of the award-winning cartoon strip Mother Goose & Grimm, will give the 2012 Commencement address May 18 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Mike Peters, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial cartooning and creator of the award-winning cartoon strip Mother Goose & Grimm, has been selected to give the 2012 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

The university’s 151st Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 18, in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus.

Peters, who earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Washington University in 1965, will address approximately 2,800 members of the Class of 2012 and their friends and family members.

During the ceremony, Peters will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from WUSTL.

“It is a great honor to have one of our most distinguished graduates serve as our 2012 Commencement speaker,” Wrighton says. “I have known Mike Peters for many years and have come to appreciate how his time as an undergraduate at Washington University shaped his very impressive career. I know it will be special for him to return to his alma mater to address this year’s graduates.”

Peters is recognized as one of the country’s most prominent cartoon artists for his outstanding work as both a political and comic strip cartoonist. His favorite expression — “What a Hoot” — sums up his outlook on his life and work, which are inexorably entwined.

His editorial cartoons appear in more than 400 newspapers and publications worldwide, including Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report.

Mother Goose and Grimm, the comic strip he created in 1984, now appears in more than 800 newspapers worldwide, and is consistently placed in the top 10 most popular comic strip ratings.

In 1991, Mother Goose and Grimm was introduced to millions of television viewers as Grimmy, a weekly Saturday morning animated television series on CBS.

Peters Download hi-res image

In addition, “Peters Postscripts,” the first animated editorial cartoons to appear regularly on a prime-time network news program, aired on NBC’s Nightly News in 1981.

He appeared in The World of Cartooning with Mike Peters, a 14-part interview series for the Public Broadcasting Service.

Born in St. Louis in 1943, Peters has been interested in cartooning, and particularly political cartooning, since his childhood growing up in the Dogtown neighborhood.

He recalls as a young boy being encouraged to draw by his mother, the late Charlotte Peters, who was host of a popular variety show on St. Louis television from the 1950s until 1970.

After earning his degree from Washington University’s School of Art, he immediately began his career on the art staff of the Chicago Daily News. In 1966, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent two years as an artist for the Seventh Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa.

After Vietnam, his mentor, the renowned World War II artist Bill Mauldin, helped him find a cartooning position on the Dayton Daily News, which has been the home newspaper for his editorial cartoons since 1969.

By 1972, his editorial cartoons were syndicated nationally and, in 1981, Peters received a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

He has become familiar to thousands through his many appearances on news shows such as ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’ The Early Show and NBC’s Today.

Peters, who has published more than 40 collections of his work, is the recipient of virtually every major honor in his profession.

In 1994, the Dayton Daily News celebrated Peters’ 25 years as their editorial cartoonist with a roast. Many respected cartoonists gathered in Dayton to honor him, and George Voinovich, the governor of Ohio at the time, designated Sept. 24, 1994, as “Mike Peters Day.”

His numerous honors also include Overseas Press Citations, the Overseas Press Award, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, an honorary degree from the University of Dayton and a Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University.

Strong WUSTL ties

Peters says he is grateful to Washington University for success in both his professional and personal life. It was at WUSTL where teachers, such as the late Richard H. Brunell, a professor of art, encouraged him to pursue his passion for cartooning.

It was also at Washington University where Peters met Marian, his wife of 47 years.

Peters hasn’t been a stranger to WUSTL since his graduation. He has been invited back to deliver three Assembly Series lectures since 1981.

During his Assembly Series lecture in 2000, he delivered the annual Benjamin E. Youngdahl Lecture in Social Policy and inaugurated a special exhibition, called “Advocates for Change: 75 Years of Journalism and Social Work,” as part of the 75th anniversary of Washington University’s Brown School.

He has also returned to campus for Homecoming and reunions of former Student Life newspaper staff members. A cartoonist for the paper while a student in the 1960s, he delivered a dinner talk as part of Student Life’s 125th anniversary celebration in 2003.

Peters was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame with a star on Delmar Boulevard in 2002.

Fringe Figure Film Series March 27, 28 and 29

2012-03-21 00:00:00

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965).

Fracture, fragmentation and juxtaposition. Over the course of the 20th century, such modernist techniques would become defining traits of both popular and avant-garde film.

Film, in turn, would profoundly influence the work of the contemporary British artist John Stezaker. Using vintage movie stills, along with old postcards and other found materials, Stezaker creates delicate collages that are at once witty, ironic and subtly disturbing.

Next week, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present three classic films — all selected by Stezaker himself — as part of its Fringe Figure Film Series. Screenings will include Carol Reed’s The Third Man (March 27), Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (March 28) and Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (March 29).

The series is held in conjunction with John Stezaker, a retrospective collecting more than 90 of the artist’s works. The exhibition remains on view at the Kemper Art Museum through April 23.

Karen Butler, assistant curator, who coordinated the exhibition for the Kemper Art Museum, points to certain parallels between Stezaker’s art and the selected films. For example, Stezaker’s Third Person Archive, which often depicts unidentified figures passing each other in cityscapes, recalls a famous scene in The Third Man, in which two characters walk past one another without acknowledgement.

“John speaks about his work as being unlike film, but I think he made a connection between these scenes of disconnected individuals,” Butler says. “Pierrot le Fou too has this sense of disconnect or unexpected juxtapositions or actions,” she adds, “though I think the connections [to Stezaker’s work] are perhaps more thematic than structural.”

All three screenings are free and open to the public and begin at 7 p.m. at the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd.

The Kemper Art Museum is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information about the film festival or the exhibition, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Schedule

7 p.m. Tuesday, March 27
The Third Man (1949)
Directed by Carol Reed
Based on a screenplay by novelist Graham Greene, this British film noir stars Joseph Cotton as Holly Martins, an American writer traveling to post-war Vienna to take a job with childhood friend Harry Lime. But when Martins arrives, he finds that Lime has been struck by a car and killed. Moreover, Martins soon discovers that his friend was in fact a black marketer, wanted by police, and that his death may have been no accident.

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28
Psycho (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock's macabre masterpiece stars Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, a troubled hotelier who seems excessively dominated by his mother; and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, a frustrated Phoenix office worker who absconds to California after spontaneously embezzling $40,000. But Crane’s journey comes to a premature end with Hitchcock’s notorious shower scene, leaving a sister and a private detective to retrace her path to the Bates Motel.

7 p.m. Thursday, March 29
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Tender and cruel, real and surreal, terrifying and funny: Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (the title translates as “Pete the Madman” or “Crazy Pete”) defies categorization. The story centers on Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a bored Parisian who flees his bourgeois existence with his babysitter and ex-lover, Marianne (Anna Karina). Like an existential Bonnie and Clyde, the couple battles gangsters, gas station attendants and American tourists as they come face to face with their own roles as characters in a pop-cultural landscape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycg2yb3qiUo

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

Community Day at Kemper Art Museum March 31

2012-03-20 00:00:00

Families enjoying the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum's first Community Day last fall. Photo by Whitney Curtis.

As a young child, Josef Albers watched his handyman father paint houses. Josef grew up to become a famous artist, studying color and reducing images to their simplest shapes.

On Saturday, March 31, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host its spring Community Day, a free afternoon of all-ages activities, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Events will include tours, performances, art-making and a reading of the children’s book An Eye for Color: The Story of Josef Albers, which depicts a diminutive Albers climbing amongst his signature, multicolored squares.

The reading, which begins at 11:30 a.m., will take place in the museum’s permanent collection gallery, which includes Albers’ Homage to the Square: Aurora, 1951-55.

At 1 p.m., assistant curator Karen Butler will lead a guided walk-through of the exhibition John Stezaker, which features more than 90 collages constructed from classic movie stills, vintage postcards, book illustrations and other found materials. In addition, local artists Maria Ojascastro and Joyce Yarbrough will lead collage and silhouette-making activities.

Other events will include scavenger hunts, button-making and performances by WUSTL a capella group The Stereotypes, at 12:30 p.m., and WU-SLam, the university’s spoken-word poetry group, at 2 p.m.

“Community Day is a chance for everyone in St. Louis to enjoy a day of art, art-making, games, music, snacks and much more,” says Allison Taylor, manager of education programs.

“Building on the success of last fall’s Community Day, we’ve added even more activities for families and children,” Taylor says. “Everything is free and parking is easy on the weekends, so I hope to see lots of people at the museum.”

The Kemper Art Museum is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Lemonade and cookies will be served throughout the day.

Community Day is funded in part by a grant from the Women’s Society of Washington University.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

The museum dates back to 1881, making it the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. Today, it boasts one of the finest university collections in the United States.

Regular museum hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll revisited in 1968 mini-colloquium March 28 and 29

Gerry Everding — 2012-03-12 00:00:00

The tumultous year of 1968 will be examined in a two-day mini-colloquium keynoted by 1960s scholar Todd Gitlin.

Todd Gitlin, PhD, a noted 1960s cultural scholar and book author, will visit Washington University in St. Louis March 28 and 29 to keynote a two-day mini-colloquium exploring the counter-cultural movements of the year 1968, including a special focus on the many literary, social, political and artistic theories spawned by these movements.

Free and open to the public, the colloquium is organized by Stamos Metzidakis, PhD, professor of French, romance languages and comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with this semester's undergraduate/graduate course "1968-In Theory and Praxis."

For colloquium registration and session schedules, visit the event website amcs.wustl.edu/events/2012/03/event-261. For more information, email amcs@artsci.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-5216.

Gitlin

Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, describes 1968 as a pivotal year in which the convulsions of a decade converged and the country slouched over the edge of a precipice. What happened in 1968 still deserves the most sober reflection, he argues, because much of what happened in those days has been distorted and warped by popular misconceptions.

"The right way to remember the year 1968 is to give its complications their due," wrote Gitlin in a Los Angeles Times commentary on the year's 40th anniversary.

"The egalitarianism of the civil rights movement and a spirit of cultural adventure commingled with a whole mélange of joyful and desperate reactions against white supremacy, senseless war, empty materialism and supine obedience,” he writes. "The result was a mutiny against all establishments, usually for good and sufficient reason, although ends were frequently violated by means."

It was, Gitlin notes, the year of the Tet offensive in Vietnam; Walter Cronkite's televised farewell to victory in that "wretched" war; the My Lai massacre (unknown until the next year); Eugene McCarthy's presidential run; Columbia University's uprising; President Lyndon Johnson's decision not to run for a second full term; Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination; scores of subsequent riots; Robert F. Kennedy's assassination; the Chicago Democratic Convention riots; the Miss America protest in Atlantic City; Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and election; and, for good measure, the first manned voyages in the Apollo program — not to mention Prague Spring; the French student uprising; the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; and, in Mexico City, the massacre of protesting students and the black power salutes of Olympic athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

Discussion of these topics begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, with a keynote lecture by Gitlin in the Anheuser-Busch Dining Hall at the Charles F. Knight Center. At 7:45 p.m., Metzidakis will lead a roundtable discussion, followed by a reception.

At 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 29, Gitlin leads an American Culture Studies workshop on issues related to his new book, Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street, scheduled for release in May.

Mini-colloquium panelists include Olivier Penot-Lacassagne, PhD, a graduate of WUSTL's Department of Romance Languages and Literatures doctoral program, and now a tenured "Maitre de conferences" at the New Sorbonne University in France.

The WUSTL panelists are Buzz Spector, the Jane Reuter Hitzeman and Herbert F. Hitzeman, Jr. Professor of Art and dean of the College and Graduate School of Art; and six from Arts & Sciences: Patrick Lawrence Burke, PhD, associate professor of music; Garrett A. Duncan, PhD, director and associate professor of African and African-American studies and associate professor of education; Seth R. Graebner, PhD, associate professor of French; Robert E. Hegel, PhD, professor of Chinese language and literature and the Liselotte Dieckmann Professor of Comparative Literature; Lutz Koepnick, PhD, chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and a William Greenleaf Eliot Residential College faculty fellow; and Linda Nicholson, PhD, the Susan E. and William P. Stiritz Distinguished Professor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

The program is sponsored by the Departments of Music, Romance Languages and Literatures, Art History and Archaeology and German; the Programs in American Culture Studies, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, East Asian Studies, Comparative Literature, International and Area studies, and African and African-American studies; and the Center for the Humanities; all in Arts & Sciences.

Michael Van Valkenburgh to speak March 19

Liam Otten — 2012-03-12 00:00:00

Plans for redesigning the Gateway Arch grounds, led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, would transform downtown's Mississippi riverfront into a cobblestone promenade. Van Valkenburgh will discuss the firm's work March 19 for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Image courtesy of MVVA.

“The goal of our work is to create parks that are intrinsically urban — not places to escape from the city, but places to escape within the city.”

So observes landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), in a recent interview with the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

It’s an idea that informs many of MVVA’s projects, from the recently opened Pier One in New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park to the firm’s current proposals for the 91-acre park surrounding St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch.

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 19, Van Valkenburgh will discuss MVVA’s work as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series.

The talk is free and open to the public and will take place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. A reception for Van Valkenburgh will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

MVVA won the Arch grounds commission in fall 2010, following a 10-month architectural competition that drew 49 proposals from firms around the world. Organized by The CityArchRiver Foundation, the project is estimated to cost more than $500 million and to be largely constructed by Oct. 28, 2015 — the 50th anniversary of the original completion of the Arch.

MVVA’s design encompasses a number of strategies for better integrating both the Arch grounds and the Mississippi riverfront into the life of downtown St. Louis. Major elements include:

building a pedestrian land bridge over the depressed lanes of Interstate 70;
redeveloping Kiener Plaza as a link between the Arch, the Old Courthouse and Citygarden;
expanding and adding a new glass-and-steel entrance to the Arch museum;
rebuilding Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard, which runs alongside the Mississippi, as a cobblestone promenade;
slinging a gondola across the river to the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park on the Illinois bank; and
restoring approximately 100 acres of wetlands in the Metro East.

In addition to his work with MVVA, Van Valkenburgh is the Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where he teaches landscape design as well as the use of plants as design material.

A fellow of the ASLA, Van Valkenburgh’s numerous honors include the National Design Award in Environmental Design from the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture for contributions to the practice of architecture as an art.

In 2010, MVVA's design for Brooklyn Bridge Park was awarded the prestigious Brendan Gill Prize from the Municipal Art Society of New York, which recognizes works of art that best exemplify and contribute to the vibrant life of New York City.

Kathryn Dean installed as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor of Architecture

2012-03-07 00:00:00

Mary Butkus

Dean receives congratulations from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton after her installation as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor of Architecture.

Kathryn A. Dean, director of the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design and professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, was installed as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor of Architecture. The ceremony was held Dec. 2, 2011, in Steinberg Auditorium.

Among the special guests were alumna Corinna Cotsen and her husband, Lee Rosenbaum, who established the professorship in memory of Cotsen’s mother; members of the Cotsen and Rosenbaum families; Corinna’s friends and fellow alumni; and Dean’s daughters, nieces, sisters and professional colleagues.

In his welcoming remarks, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton thanked the donors and reflected on the gift’s importance.

“Your generous gift will impact the world of architecture now and well into the future, for this professorship ensures that the school continues to attract and retain the most outstanding scholars and professional architects at Washington University,” Wrighton said.

Stolaroff Cotsen attended Washington University’s School of Art, now the Sam Fox School’s College of Art, but earned her undergraduate degree from the Parsons School of Design in New York.

After settling down in Los Angeles, Stolaroff Cotsen became a patron of the arts. Among her lasting contributions was co-founding the Los Angeles Friends of the Junior Arts Center, a public teaching center open to all children interested in art. She also volunteered as a docent for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Corinna Cotsen chose Washington University for her graduate education and earned two master’s degrees, in architecture and in construction management, from the School of Architecture and the School of Engineering & Applied Science, respectively.

After graduating, she founded the Edifice Complex, a LEED-certified design and engineering firm based in Manhattan Beach, Calif., which specializes in creating sustainable living spaces within built environments.

Rosenbaum, who specializes in entertainment law with the Los Angeles firm Wyman, Isaacs, Blumenthal & Lynne, earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a juris doctorate from Harvard University.

A devoted alumna, Cotsen currently serves on the university’s Board of Trustees. She also has served as chair of the Los Angeles Regional Cabinet and has been on Architecture’s National Council for 15 years. In 2006, she received the Dean’s Medal from the Graduate School of Architecture in honor of her service.

A commitment to WUSTL passed from mother to daughter, and the pattern now is repeating itself: Corinna’s daughter, Chiara, now in her first year at the university, represents the third generation to matriculate here.

In addition to Wrighton, the installation ceremony included remarks by Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts; and Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture in the Sam Fox School and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration.

“It is a great pleasure to welcome Corinna and Lee here today to express my deep gratitude for their commitment to the school of architecture,” Colangelo said. “This professorship gives us an extraordinary opportunity to honor both a distinguished faculty member and to honor the memory of JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen.”

“As an outstanding educator and celebrated architect, Kathryn Dean brings to Washington University the experience and passion to help our students become leaders in enriching our cultural, natural and physical environments,” Lindsey said.

Dean came to WUSTL in 2008 and now divides her time between St. Louis and New York, where she and her husband, Charles Wolf, head up Dean/Wolf Architects. Wolf earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from Washington University. Their daughter, Carolyn, is a WUSTL freshman, and she and Chiara Rosenbaum are friends.

Dean earned a bachelor’s degree in 1981 from North Dakota State University and then earned a master’s degree in architecture two years later from the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

In 1986, she was awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship and spent the year as a resident fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Other honors include Progressive Architecture’s Young Architects Award; an Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York; and an Alumni Achievement Award from North Dakota State University.

Dean began teaching in 1991 as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. In 1998, she was a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University, and, in 2000, she returned to Columbia as an assistant professor. She also has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, University of Virginia and University of Florida.

Since its inception in 1991, Dean/Wolf Architects has garnered a national reputation for its innovative designs in contemporary residential architecture. Many of the firm’s major projects have been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and have been widely praised for turning architectural constraints into powerful generators of form. One of its hallmarks is a novel manipulation of light and space.

The company’s work has been featured in several exhibitions and in more than a dozen books, including Forty Under Forty and The New City Home. Last year, the monograph Dean/Wolf Architects: Construction Continuum was published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Interview with Wang Shu

2012-03-07 00:00:00

http://youtu.be/WM71gG8tCXo

On Feb. 27, 2012, just two days before lecturing at Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Wang Shu became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, generally considered the profession's highest honor.

Here he discusses his work with architectural historians Robert McCarter, the Sam Fox School's Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture, and Seng Kuan, assistant professor of architecture. The talk takes place in the university's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, designed by Fumihiko Maki, Wang's fellow Pritzker laureate.

Robert Bruegmann to speak March 7

2012-03-06 00:00:00

From The Architecture of Harry Weese (2010) by architectural historian Robert Bruegmann, who will speak for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts March 7.

In a career spanning half a century, Chicago architect Harry Weese (1915-98) produced a large number of significant designs, ranging from small but highly inventive residences to large-scale urban commissions such as the Washington, D.C., Metro system.

In Missouri, Weese is probably best known for the campus of St. Louis’ Forest Park Community College and the WallStreet Tower (formerly Mercantile Bank) in Kansas City.

In The Architecture of Harry Weese (2010), critic and historian Robert Bruegmann reexamines Weese’s protean career and legacy, part of a fast-growing revival of interest in the work of Weese and other second-generation modernists such as Eero Saarinen, Edward Larrabee Barnes, I. M. Pei, Ralph Rapson and Paul Rudolph.

Bruegmann, a University Distinguished Professor of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is also the author of Sprawl: A Compact History (2005) — the first major book to challenge urban sprawl’s pejorative connotations — and The Architects and the City: Holabird and Roche of Chicago 1880-1918 (1997), which traces the history of one of Chicago’s most influential firms.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, Bruegmann will speak for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series.

The talk — the school’s annual AIA St. Louis Scholarship Trust Lecture — will take place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. A reception for Bruegmann will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Bruegmann earned a bachelor’s degree from Principia College in 1970 and his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, writing his dissertation on late 18th- and early 19th-century European hospitals and other institutions.

In 1977, Bruegmann became assistant professor in the Art History Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia College of the Arts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University. He also has worked for the Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service.

Bruegmann’s fields of research and teaching are architectural, urban, landscape and planning history and historic preservation. He has received scholarships and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Graham Foundation; the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University; and the Institute for the Humanities and the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Other books include Modernism at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the United States Air Force Academy (editor, 1994), Holabird & Roche/Holabird & Root, Catalog of Work 1910-1940 (1991), A Guide to 150 Years of Chicago Architecture (1985) and Benicia: Portrait of an Early California Town: An Architectural History (1980).

Architecture’s highest honor

2012-03-02 00:00:00

jerry naunheim jr. (2)

“Someone at Washington University in St. Louis just hit the lecture jackpot.” So quipped Blair Kamin, the Chicago Tribune’s influential architecture critic. On Feb. 27, just two days before his scheduled talk for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, architect Wang Shu (above, center) became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, generally considered the profession’s highest honor. On Feb. 29, Wang met with students, faculty and well-wishers at a reception in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (above) and then spoke before a capacity crowd in Steinberg Hall Auditorium (below). Fittingly, Wang delivered the Sam Fox School’s annual Fumihiko Maki Lecture, named for former WUSTL faculty member and Wang's fellow Pritzker laureateFumihiko Maki, who designed the Kemper Art Museum and Steinberg Hall.

Art and the Mind-Brain talk March 7

2012-03-02 00:00:00

Mark Rollins, PhD, professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences, discusses Art and the Mind-Brain, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, with the Women and the Kemper friends group Feb. 6. Rollins will present a free public talk about the exhibition, which he curated, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 7. Photo by Mike Venso/Kemper Art Museum.

Art may be subjective, but it is not entirely so. Aesthetic interest also can be understood in terms of a work’s power to engage cognitive and perceptual systems common to all human brains.

Roy Lichtenstein, Crying Girl, 1963. Offset lithograph, 18 x 24". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Mrs. Joseph L. Tucker, 1965.

This is the central premise of neuroaesthetics, an emerging field that draws on neuroscience, psychology and philosophy to explore questions relating to beauty, artistic expression and art history.

It is also the premise behind Art and the Mind-Brain, now on view in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s Teaching Gallery.

Curated by Mark Rollins, PhD, professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences, the exhibition employs works from the museum’s permanent collection — by Joseph Albers, Romare Bearden, Georges Braque, Tom Friedman, Naum Gabo, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Rembrandt van Rijn and others — to illustrate different, and sometimes competing, theories of pictorial representation.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, Rollins will present a free public talk about Art and the Mind-Brain in the museum's room 104.

“The oldest and most intuitive theory of pictorial representation holds that, unlike words, pictures represent objects by resembling them,” says Rollins, who organized the show in conjunction with a class of the same title. “According to this view, Roy Lichtenstein’s lithograph Crying Girl (1963) represents a crying girl only if we experience it perceptually much as we would a real girl crying (as we seem, in fact, to do).

“The problem is that, in many cases, the experience of the picture and its object are really very different,” Rollins says. “Our experience of Georges Braque’s Still Life with Glass (1930) is not very much like that of a glass on a table, yet the painting pictorially represents a glass on a table nonetheless.”

Thus, a second theory notes that viewers experience a picture’s content and design simultaneously — a twofold-ness possibly rooted in the division between the brain’s ventral and dorsal systems. A third theory holds that the brain recognizes what a picture represents by activating the same unconscious structures engaged by the object itself. For example, though characterized by very different artistic styles, Crying Girl and Joan Miró’s Portrait of Josep F. Ràfols (1917) both may activate some form of neural face recognition module.

Other neuroaesthetic theories speak to the mechanisms by which, for example, small involuntary eye movements may create an illusory sense of movement, or the ways in which mirror neurons influence the expression of emotion.

“This discussion of representation and expression suggests how cognitive science might provide new answers to other controversial questions,” Rollins says. “How, for example, do we interpret art, or ascribe larger meanings to it beyond simply recognizing the objects that may be represented or the emotions that may be expressed? What is the relevance of the artist’s intentions in that regard?

“By offering an opportunity to apply recent research in science to questions such as these, the works in Art and the Mind-Brain open the door to new conversation about the nature and power of art.”

Art and the Mind-Brain remains on view through April 16. The Kemper Art Museum is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information about the talk or the exhibition, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

In addition, the museum now is accepting proposals from faculty across the university for future Teaching Gallery exhibitions. For more information, and an archive of previous shows, visit the Teaching Gallery webpage; or contact Allison Taylor, manager of education programs, at (314) 935-7918 or Allison.taylor@wustl.edu.

Media advisory: Wang Shu

2012-02-29 00:00:00

The Ningbo History Museum, in Ningbo, China, designed by 2012 Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu. Photo by Lv Hengzhong.

WHO: Chinese architect Wang Shu. On Monday, Feb. 27, Wang became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, widely considered the field’s highest honor, equivalent to the Nobel.

WHAT: Visiting Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

WHERE: Intersection of Forsyth and Skinker Boulevard.

WHEN: Wang will be on campus throughout the day Wednesday and Thursday. To arrange an interview, call Liam Otten at 314-935-8494 (office); 314-324-2076 (cell) or email liam_otten@wustl.edu.

MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Wang and Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School.

BACKGROUND: Wang Shu has won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, making him the first Chinese citizen to receive what is generally considered architecture’s highest honor.

Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the $100,000 prize, made the announcement Monday, Feb. 27. Two days later, students and faculty in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will be among the first to congratulate Wang, when the architect visits the Sam Fox School Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 29 and March 1.

“This is a wonderful acknowledgement of the international character of contemporary architecture,” says Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School and associate professor of architecture, who organizes the lecture series.

MacKeith notes that, as China has grown increasingly urbanized, Chinese architects have found increasing prominence on the world stage. “Our Chinese students are really excited by this news,” MacKeith adds. “It is a great honor that they all share in.”

While on campus, Wang will lecture about his work, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, in Steinberg Auditorium. That event is open to the public, but filming is prohibited.

Wang Shu, 2012 Pritzker Prize winner, Feb. 29

2012-02-27 00:00:00

Archictect Wang Shu's design for the Ningbo History Museum in Ningbo, China.Shu, winner of the 2012 Pritzker Prize, will speak for the Sam Fox School Feb. 29. Photo by Lv Hengzhong.

Wang Shu has won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, making him the first Chinese citizen to receive what is generally considered architecture’s highest honor.

Wang Shu.  Photo by Zhu Chenzhou.

Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the $100,000 prize, made the announcement Monday, Feb. 27. Two days later, students and faculty in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will be among the first to congratulate Wang when the architect discusses his work as part of the Sam Fox School’s spring Public Lecture Series.

The talk is free and open to the public and will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, in Steinberg Auditorium. Seating is limited. A reception will precede the talk, at 5:30 p.m., in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

MacKeith notes that, as China has grown increasingly urbanized, Chinese architects have gained increasing prominence on the world stage. “It’s a quality that’s reflected in the international character of the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, as well as in the university's own ambitions.”

"Our Chinese students are really excited by this news," MacKeith adds. "It is a great honor that they all share in."

Wang is principal of Amateur Architecture Studio, which he founded in Hangzhou in 1997 with his wife, Lu Wenyu. Though formally spare and rigorous, the firm’s work frequently incorporates elements of local craftsmanship while alluding to regional practices and characteristics.

For example, Wang’s design for Xingshan Campus of the China Academy of Art (completed in two phases, in 2004 and ’07) included more than two million roof tiles salvaged from demolished traditional houses. Similarly, his design for the Library of Wenzheng College at Suzhou University (2000) sited nearly half the building underground, in accordance with local gardening customs, which suggest that structures located between water and the mountains should not be prominent.

Ceramic House, 2003-2006, Jinhua, China. Photo by Lv Hengzhong.

Other major projects include the Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum (2005) and the Ningbo Historic Museum (2008) as well as a pair of projects in Hangzhou: the Vertical Courtyard Apartments (2008), which consists of six 26-story towers, and the Exhibition Hall of the Imperial Street of Southern Song Dynasty (2009).

"The question of the proper relation of present to past is particularly timely, for the recent process of urbanization in China invites debate as to whether architecture should be anchored in tradition or should look only toward the future,” the Pritzker jury noted in its citation. “As with any great architecture, Wang Shu’s work is able to transcend that debate, producing an architecture that is timeless, deeply rooted in its context and yet universal.”

Perhaps fittingly, Wang will deliver the Sam Fox School’s 2012 Fumihiko Maki Lecture. Maki, winner of the 1993 Pritzker Prize, was on faculty from 1956-63 and is architect of three campus buildings: Steinberg Hall, Walker Hall and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Other Pritzker laureates associated with the university include Austrailian architect Glenn Murcutt, who won in 2002, while serving as the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture; Hans Hollein of Vienna, who taught here in 1963-64, won in 1985; and Gottfried Boehm of Cologne, Germany, the 1986 laureate, who was a visiting professor in 1998.

Both Murcutt and Juhani Pallasmaa, a former Raymond E. Maritz Visiting Professor of Architecture, currently serve on the Pritzker Jury.

No Boundaries: Women Leaders of Washington University

2012-02-23 00:00:00

“No Boundaries: Women Leaders of Washington University,” an intergenerational discussion group, will be held from 3-4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6, in Brown Hall Lounge. An RSVP is required by Tuesday, Feb. 28.

The event will feature an exchange of ideas and experiences with young women of Washington University who have demonstrated leadership in sports, academics, the community and more. Learn what is unique and what is common about how different generations of women pursue their passions.

To RSVP visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MEETTHELEADERS or contact Kitty Conroy at conroyr@wustl.edu, (314) 935-9104.

The Meet the Leaders series is sponsored by the WUSTL Woman’s Club with the Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Office of the Provost.

For more information on the Meet the Leaders series, contact Kitty Conroy at conroyr@wustl.edu or 314-935-9104.

Open forum on 2012 election year activities at WUSTL

2012-02-23 00:00:00

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University invites student groups, centers, departments and schools, as well as individual members of the university community, to join an open discussion about plans for the 2012 election year.

The meeting will be held from 4-5:30 p.m. Monday, March 5, in the Multipurpose Room, lower level of Mallinckrodt Center on the Danforth Campus.

This forum will help the institute coordinate activities through fall 2012 including voter registration, voter education, speakers and panel discussions on issues, election watch parties and other programming related to politics. Anyone interested in hosting such activities or in brainstorming ideas is welcome to join the discussion.

This meeting will lead to a smaller working committee that will help develop and support a broad range of non-partisan services and programs that increase interest and participation in civic life.

RSVP to Program Director Robin Hattori at rhattori@wustl.edu or 314-935-8628 by March 1 with name and affiliation. Those unable to attend the initial meeting can contact Hattori to be added to the correspondence list.

Gephardt Institute names faculty scholars in community-based teaching and learning

2012-02-14 00:00:00

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis has announced faculty scholars receiving Innovation Grants for Community-Based Teaching and Learning.

Community-based teaching and learning, also known as service-learning, is a pedagogy that is growing across all disciplines. These courses are distinguished by learning activities in service to an organization or community, course content and assignments connected to the service, and faculty oversight.

The grants provide faculty members with financial support for curriculum development and implementation. Faculty scholars join previous grant recipients in a cohort that meets to discuss common challenges and share successful strategies in community-based teaching and learning.

The Gephardt Institute also offers technical expertise to faculty in key areas of community-based teaching and learning such as assignments reflecting on service, evaluation methods and tools for working effectively with community partners.

Faculty recipients for 2011-12 are:

Forrest Fulton, visiting assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Students in “City Studio Design-Build at Patrick Henry School in Columbus Square” will work with the school and community to strengthen the design of a shared garden.

John Trelawney Hoal, PhD, associate professor of architecture and chair of the Master of Urban Design Program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Students will work with members of the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood to create an overarching sustainability plan through the course “Contemporary Practices of Sustainable Urbanism.”

Ignacio Infante, PhD, assistant professor of comparative literature in Arts & Sciences. Students in the “World-wide Translation: Language, Culture, Technology” course will engage with community partners by providing a variety of translation services.

Glenn Davis Stone, PhD, professor of sociocultural anthropology and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences. Through the “Village India Program,” students will teach lessons at Pai Junior College in Andhra Pradesh, India, and participate in other village activities.

Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service, director, Civil Rights and Community Justice Clinic, and director, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program in the School of Law; and C.J. Larkin, JD, administrative director of the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program and lecturer in law. The grant will support students in “Civil Rights & Community Justice Clinic” to develop informational community resources.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in Arts & Sciences. A departmental grant will support a range of community-based courses taught by Jami Ake, PhD, assistant dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Barbara Baumgartner, PhD, senior lecturer, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program; Amy Eisen Cislo, PhD, interim associate director and lecturer, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program; and Susan Stiritz, PhD, senior lecturer, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program.

For more information about community-based teaching and learning at Washington University, visit gephardtinstitute.wustl.edu/CBTL .

Washington People: Patricia Olynyk

Liam Otten — 2012-02-10 00:00:00

Joe Angeles

Patricia Olynyk (right), director of the Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and master’s candidate Marie Bannerot McInerney discuss Olynyk's Isomorphic Extension I & II, in Olynyk's Maplewood studio.

Scaphocephalus.

The word refers to a condition in which the shape of the skull is markedly long and narrow. At the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, one of the country’s oldest medical teaching collections, the word is tattooed onto a 19th-century exemplar, neat cursive script fading into aged bone.

“One goes to the museum presumably to find answers,” says Patricia Olynyk, director of the Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. “But none of the questions I have about any of the people whose heads reside in these collections can possibly be answered by looking at the archive.

“The objects generate far more questions than answers,” she says. “Therein lies the irony.”

Over the past several years, Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art, has developed a series of lightbox photographs that both detail and interrogate the Mutter exhibits. Collectively titled The Archive, they include a handful of skulls as well as antique medical instruments, prosthetic devices, flap anatomies (a kind of anatomical pop-up book) and other objects.

Softly backlit and reproduced larger than life, The Archive feels both clinical and uncanny, as if one were standing before the exhibits themselves — though Olynyk clearly locates the work in the realm of the aesthetic, rather than the strictly documentary. Prosthetic hands fan outward, implying sequential time. Prosthetic legs seem poised to kick. Yellowed skulls, printed on metallic paper, shine as if gold-leafed.

“What makes these collections quintessentially contemporary is that the conditions that put them in the museum, our culture’s preoccupation with difference, remain alive and well today,” Olynyk says.

“There was a time in history when there was little discerning between the person, the ‘monstrous’ and the medical anomaly,” she says. Indeed, such conflations were at the heart of physiognomy, the now-discredited “science” of deducing character traits from outward appearances.

“Yet we are still preoccupied with difference.”

A magical place

Born in Western Canada, Olynyk was raised in Calgary, within sight of the Rocky Mountains. The landscape was majestic but stern. Long winters instilled respect for the elements and a recognition of vulnerability.

“It’s a kind of magical place,” she says, “but you also had the feeling, when in the mountains, that if you took a wrong turn, you might disappear.”

Olynyk drew constantly as a child, and on anything. “Walls, dolls, bodies — you name it.” Her mother, Lily, once phoned a radio show for advice about removing ballpoint ink from her daughter’s skin. By age 9, Olynyk was taking private art lessons, though she also credits her father, Mike, an engineer, with imparting a “proclivity for exactitude.”

After completing her undergraduate studies in visual art, Olynyk spent three years as a preparator at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum, working with historical displays and contemporary artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz and Judy Chicago.

While in graduate school at the California College of the Arts, she landed an internship at Oakland’s venerable Magnolia Press, specializing in handmade paper and photographic processes.

That expertise helped secure both a Monbusho Scholarship and a Tokyu Foundation Research Scholarship, allowing her to study Japanese culture at the Osaka National University of Foreign Studies and Japanese contemporary art at Kyoto Seika University.

In Kyoto, Olynyk developed a serious interest in Kendo, a martial art descended from traditional Japanese swordsmanship.

“The training bridges meditation and extreme physical combat,” she says. “It’s amazingly rigorous, but that balance really captured my interest.”

Four years later, with her student visa nearing expiration, Olynyk was a second-degree black belt. One teacher — a champion Kendoist who drilled the Imperial police force — offered to formally adopt her so that she might stay in Japan.

“It was an extraordinary gesture, like none other that I’ve encountered,” Olynyk says, rather wistfully. But long hours in the dojo had been bought at the expense of studio time.

“I realized I had to make a choice.”

Sensing Terrains

Returning to the Bay Area, Olynyk became production manager for feminist performance artist Suzanne Lacy, then strung together a series of part-time teaching appointments. Her own work employed photolithography to layer detailed biological and architectural drawings onto delicate, handmade Japanese papers, which she then laminated onto architectural salvage.

“I was interested in what made the scientific image art,” she says.

Then, in 1999, Olynyk took a tenure-track position at the University of Michigan. As the university prepared to launch a new center for theoretical physics, Olynyk connected with Dante Amidei, a particle physicist who arranged for her to visit Illinois’ famed Fermilab.

Inspired, Olynyk commenced her own investigations into the nature of matter. The result was Particle Paradise, or Lilith Looking for a Particle of Another Charge, a pair of large architectural columns combining images of subatomic particles, reproduced from Fermilab films, with Albrecht Durer’s engraving of Adam and Eve.

That image, not coincidentally, was itself a tribute to Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Leon Battista Alberti’s influential treatise on art and science. Adam is based on Alberti’s likeness; Eve is Durer in disguise.

“In the same commemorative spirit, I used Durer’s Eve — really Durer himself — to celebrate Lilith,” she says. “The pillar was retrofitted so that the center part spins. On one side, you see Lilith in her visceral form; on the other side, you see her in particle form.”

Next, Olynyk began juxtaposing photographs of gardens from the Kansai Region of Japan, which are designed to “tickle the senses,” with scanning electron micrographs of sensory organs from mice, insects and other creatures. She soon was invited to develop the series into an exhibition for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C. — a rare honor for any artist.

Three years in the making, Sensing Terrains opened at the NAS in 2006. The installation consisted of 10 tall, narrow prints leading to the rotunda and 16 prints in the rotunda itself. Accompanying the images was a low, humming soundscape, developed with Jukka Nurmela, a Finnish sound engineer, and studio assistant Kathryn Stine.

“I was interested in the phenomenological response,” Olynyk says. “What happens to our sense of ourselves when we’re confronted with a fly eye that’s four feet wide? There’s a visceral response but there’s also a cerebral response.

“The mind struggles to ascertain what it’s looking at.”

A distinct territory

Olynyk arrived at the Sam Fox School in 2007. It was a time of transition, as the Graduate School of Art was moving away from media-specific “silos” to a more interdisciplinary master of visual arts.

“Patricia is an extraordinarily sophisticated and elegant artist whose work embodies the idea and the concrete possibilities of collaboration,” says Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts, who helped recruit Olynyk.

“Her prints, photographs and installations visualize concepts about the intersection of art and science,” Colangelo says. “At the same time, as a teacher and administrator, she fosters both the informal culture and the organizational structures required to bring people together.”

To improve connections between the graduate school and the wider WUSTL community, Olynyk recently launched the Creative Research Institute Fellows, a pilot program in which visiting artists and guest faculty share a large, open studio with current master’s candidates.

“We want students to engage the world of ideas,” she says. “Each fellow represents a conceptual territory in which students have expressed interest, and is available for informal feedback.”

The idea is to pitch “conceptual and/or thematic umbrellas, not media umbrellas.”

As if demonstrating the point, Olynyk’s most recent project is Dark Skies, a sprawling architectural installation opening Feb. 22 at UCLA’s Art|Sci Center. Created in collaboration with Sung Ho Kim of Axi:Ome and associate professor of architecture at WUSTL, and alumnus Chris Ottinger (MFA ’11), the piece combines projection, recorded sound and CNC-routed tiles inspired loosely by the concept of biomimicry.

“With this piece, I function as a kind of production designer,” Olynyk says.

The title is an astronomical metaphor, referring to remote places free of hazy city light, but also suggests sailing into dangerous or difficult territory.

“I like the implication of perception that extends deep into time and space, resulting in a kind of clarity of vision and with this, deep insight. The extended view offers the promise of new knowledge.

“The curatorial object carries with it important aesthetic characteristics and conceptual underpinnings,” she says, “but what really interests me is thinking about what the object does. What conversations emerge when you look at it? What discourses attach?

“There’s creativity in engineering, in math, in the planetary sciences,” she says, “but the experience of art is unique and distinct from other kinds of experiences.

“Art-making is its own distinct territory and knowledge base.”

Fast facts about Patricia Olynyk

Education: 1983, diploma of visual art, Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary; 1988, master of fine arts degree with distinction, California College of the Arts, Oakland; 1990, diploma, Osaka National University of Foreign Studies; 1990-93, research scholar, Department of Art, Kyoto Seika University
Selected scholarships and fellowships: 2005-06, Wood Fellowship, Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia; 2001, Helmut S. Stern Faculty Fellowship, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan; 1991-93, Tokyu Foundation Scholarship, from the Tokyu Foundation, Tokyo; 1989-91, Monbusho Scholarship, from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Tokyo
Selected professional memberships and associations: Art and Science Collaborations Inc., College Art Association, Ecoartnetwork, Inter Society for the Electronic Arts, Leonardo Education Forum and Society for Literature, Science and the Arts

Introducing new faculty members

2012-02-06 00:00:00

The following are among the new faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis. Others will be introduced periodically.

Derek Hoeferlin joins the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts as assistant professor of architecture and urban design. Previously a senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School, he is principal of Derek James Hoeferlin Architect and, with H3 Studio Inc., helped lead the Unified New Orleans Plan — the only formally adopted post-Katrina recovery plan. He currently is collaborating with Waggonner & Ball Architects on New Orleans’ Integrated Water Management Strategy and works with Gutter to Gulf, which advocating for spatially integrated water designs. He also conducts global comparative delta and watershed research — primarily focused on the Mekong — to inform adaptive design strategies.

Irena Knezevic joins the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts as assistant professor of art. Knezevic, a Serbian artist, works in various performative forms, materials, venues and means of distribution to construct programs for the public and institutions. Current areas of research include secrets, involuntary movement, dream-wreck, liquidity, topical and tropical disasters and downward spirals. Upcoming exhibitions include solo projects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, FotoFest 2012 Biennial in Houston, and the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. A monograph of Knezevic’s scores, programs and manifestos, titled The Victory Of Literary School X, is forthcoming from University of Illinois Press.

Seng Kuan, PhD, joins the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts as assistant professor of architecture. Kuan earned a doctorate from Harvard University with a dissertation on the work of Kenzō Tange and urban design in postwar Japan. Curatorial work includes the exhibitions Metabolism, the City of the Future: Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Post-War and Present-Day Japan (Mori Art Museum in Tokyo) and Utopia Across Scales: Highlights from the Kenzō Tange Archive (Harvard Graduate School of Design). He is editing an anthology of recent scholarship on Tange and postwar Japanese architectural culture. Previous books include Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China and Shanghai: Architecture and Modernism for Modern China.

Gary J. Patti, PhD, joins the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and departments of Genetics and Medicine in the School of Medicine as assistant professor. Patti earned a doctorate at WUSTL in biochemistry in 2008 and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology. Patti's research focuses on using cutting-edge mass spectrometry methods to study the levels of metabolites in biological specimens and how they change as a function of disease. With this approach, known as metabolomics, Patti has identified a novel metabolite in the central nervous system that plays an important role in mediating chronic pain. He is exploring therapeutics that target production of the metabolite as new treatments for the condition. Other research interests include integrating genomic information with metabolomic information and developing related bioinformatic tools for the analysis of complex datasets.

Monika Weiss joins the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts as assistant professor of art. A Polish-American transdisciplinary artist, Weiss’ practice explores the body as cultural and physical signifier, in the context of historical and individual memory. She works in projected video, performance, sound composition, drawing and sculpture, often combining these elements into large-scale public installations. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in the United States and internationally, including Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. In 2009, Weiss was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in the interdisciplinary category. Publications about her work include Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art and Monika Weiss: Five Rivers.

Craig Dykers to discuss work Feb. 1

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:08:08 CST

The Norwegian Reindeer Pavilion by Craig Dykers, co-founder of the architecture firm Snøhetta. This spring, Dykers will serve as the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, where he will chair the 2012 Steedman Fellowship in Architecture International Design Competition jury. Photo by Klaus Van Ommeren.

Internationally acclaimed architect Craig Dykers will chair the jury for Washington University in St. Louis’ 2012 Steedman Fellowship in Architecture International Design Competition.

Dykers is co-founder of Snøhetta, an architecture, landscape architecture and interior design firm with offices in Oslo, Norway, and New York City. Major projects include design of Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo and the recently opened National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the former World Trade Center site in New York.

The Steedman Competition, sponsored biennially by the College of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is open to young architects from around the world. Winners receive a cash prize to support study and research abroad.

For 2012, the first place award will be $50,000 — up from $30,000 in 2010 — making it one of the largest competition prizes in the United States.

Dykers, who will serve as the Sam Fox School’s Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture this spring, will be joined on the Steedman jury by Brad Cloepfil, principal of Allied Works Architecture in Portland and New York; and by Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen, principals of UrbanLab of Chicago.

In addition, Dykers will speak about his work at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, for the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series. The talk is free and open to the public and takes place in Steinberg Auditorium.

Registration for the Steedman Competition is currently under way. The program will be announced Feb. 17, with competition entries due April 2.

Applicants must be graduates of an accredited school of architecture, and must currently be employed in — or have completed at least one year of practical experience in — the office of a practicing architect. Applicants are eligible to compete for up to eight years after receipt of their professional degrees, regardless of age.

For more information or for registration materials, visit steedmancompetition.com.

Craig Dykers

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1961, Dykers has lived extensively in both Europe and North America. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin, following initial studies in medicine and art.

After working in Texas and California, Dykers co-founded Snøhetta with Kjetil Thorsen in Oslo, Norway, in 1989 — the same year the firm won the international competition to design the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Snøhetta established its New York office in 2004, the year it was awarded the commission for the September 11 Museum.

Other major projects include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expansion, the redesign of Times Square and the newly completed Wolfe Center for the Arts at Bowling Green State University.

Dykers’ work has received numerous awards, including the Mies van der Rohe Prize (2009) and two World Architecture Awards for best cultural building, for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2002) and for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet (2008).

A member of the Norwegian Architecture Association and the American Institute of Architects, Dykers is a fellow in the Royal Society of Arts in England and vice president of the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce. In addition, Dykers has been the diploma adjudicator at the Architectural College in Oslo and a distinguished professor at City College of New York.

Toronto architect Nevena Krilic won Washington University’s 2010 Steedman Fellowship in Architecture International Design Competition, which explored the relationship between the Mississippi River, the City of St. Louis and Eero Saarinen’s iconic Gateway Arch. The program for the 2012 competition will be released in February.

Steedman Fellowship

Granted since 1925, the Steedman Fellowship is awarded biennially on the basis of an international design competition. The fellowship enables graduates of accredited professional programs in architecture around the world to travel for architectural research and study in countries for a period of nine months.

The award is based on the quality of the selected winner’s competition design entry, as well as the merits of the research and travel proposal.

The Steedman Fellowship is supported by an endowment — given to the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design — in honor of James Harrison Steedman, who earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Washington University in 1889.

The memorial was established by Steedman’s widow, Mrs. Alexander Weddel, and by Steedman’s brother, George.

McDonnell Academy welcomes 12 new scholars from around the world

2012-01-20 00:00:00

A select group of research universities in countries throughout the world are partners in the McDonnell International Scholars Academy. Graduates of the 27 partner institutions are eligible to apply to become McDonnell Scholars.

The McDonnell International Scholars Academy at Washington University in St. Louis welcomed 12 new talented graduate and professional students for the 2011-12 academic year.

The new scholars are graduates of one of 27 premier universities from around the world partnered with Washington University in the McDonnell International Scholars Academy.

The new scholars are: Naoko Akimoto, Chen Li, Richa Joshi, Li Yunzi, Li Weijie, Lin Chih-Chung, Leandro Medina de Oliveira, Bharatkumar Suthar, Wu Mengfei, Antonio Zanutto, Zhang Liu and Zhu Chuanmei.

Headquartered at Washington University, the McDonnell Academy enrolls exceptional graduate and professional students across all graduate disciplines at the university.

The McDonnell Academy Scholars are expected to be future global leaders. As such, they are provided not only with a rigorous graduate education at Washington University, but also with cultural, political and social activities designed to prepare them as leaders knowledgeable about the United States, other countries and critical international issues.

Employing an unusual approach, the McDonnell Academy brings together top scholars from Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America to pursue world-class education and research while forging a strong network with one another.

Key to this are partnerships Washington University has established with top universities and corporations around the world, with an eye to increasing opportunities for joint research and global education.

“In creating an international network of research universities, Washington University intends to develop a cohort of future leaders in a global university system and promote global awareness and social responsibility,” says McDonnell Academy Director James V. Wertsch, PhD, associate vice chancellor for international affairs and the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

“Since getting to know our newest class of scholars over this past semester, I know that they are making great contributions to the research effort at Washington University as well as enhancing the educational experiences of our domestic students through sharing their culture, history and the politics of their countries,” Wertsch says.

Academy ambassadors

Once selected for this highly competitive program, each academy scholar is matched with a distinguished member of the WUSTL faculty who serves as a mentor and also as an academy “ambassador” to the university partner from which the scholar has graduated.

The academy ambassador assists the McDonnell scholar in academic and professional life and travels annually with the scholar to the partner university to build relationships between the two institutions.

“The scholars, working with their ambassadors, help foster collaborative research and educational efforts across the academy institutions on issues such as energy and sustainability, international understanding and public health,” Wertsch says. “The academy is an incubator of new ideas on global networks in research and education and will continue to pursue new initiatives in the future.”

The McDonnell Academy organizes special events for the scholars, including leadership training, cultural opportunities, seminars and workshops with experts in key areas, conferences on crucial issues, and sessions in Washington, D.C., with U.S. government policymakers and grant administrators.

Scholar support

The McDonnell Academy Scholars receive funding for full tuition and living expenses for the time it takes to get a degree at WUSTL. The academy also provides support for an annual trip back to the scholar’s alma mater.

To help foster a sense of community, many of the scholars reside in two fully equipped and furnished apartment buildings near campus.

Funding is provided through a sustaining endowment gift from John F. McDonnell, vice chair of WUSTL’s Board of Trustees and retired chairman of the board of McDonnell Douglas Corp.

Additional support comes from 22 multinational corporations, foundations and individual sponsors. Sponsoring corporations also offer internships and on-site educational opportunities for the academy’s corporate fellows.

To view a list of the academy sponsors, visit http://mcdonnell.wustl.edu/sponsors/.

Partner universities

Partner universities in the academy are committed to excellence in education and research and to the importance of international collaboration.

The select group of worldwide research universities that are partners with the McDonnell International Scholars Academy follows:

Ankara
Middle East Technical University
Bangkok
Chulalongkorn University
Beijing
China Agricultural University
Peking University
Tsinghua University
Brisbane
The University of Queensland
Budapest
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Campinas
State University of Campinas
Haifa
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Herzliya
Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
Hong Kong
Chinese University of Hong Kong
University of Hong Kong
Istanbul
Bogaziçi University
Jakarta
University of Indonesia
Melbourne
The University of Melbourne
Mumbai
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
New Dehli
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Santiago
University of Chile
Seoul
Korea University
Seoul National
Yonsei University
Shanghai
Fudan University
Singapore
National University of Singapore
Taipei
National Taiwan University
Tokyo
University of Tokyo
Utrecht
Utrecht University

Nominations sought for Civic Scholars program

2012-01-18 00:00:00

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service is accepting nominations for the Civic Scholars program, which recognizes Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate students who exemplify future potential for civic leadership.

Five to seven rising juniors will be selected based on their commitment to community service and civic engagement.

For two years, Civic Scholars take academic coursework with American Culture Studies in Arts & Sciences, receive intensive leadership training, and form a mentorship network to prepare them for a life dedicated to public service. They also are awarded a scholarship of $5,000 to support a substantial civic project or internship for the summer after junior year.

“In my position at the university, I have the opportunity to meet many exceptional undergraduates,” says Amy O’Brien, program coordinator for the Institute for School Partnership.

“The Civic Scholars program is a way to recognize those students who are standouts in leadership and community service,” she says. “Last year, I nominated four students, and two were chosen for the inaugural group.

“I encourage everyone to nominate students who are looking for an experience that will shape their future in civic service.”

Nominate a current sophomore by Friday, Feb. 3, by filling out a brief form on surveymonkey.com/s/CivicScholarsNominationForm.

Self-nominations, peer nominations and nominations from faculty and staff are welcome.

Nominees will be invited to submit full applications by March 5 and the cohort will be announced in April.

For an application or more information, contact Gephardt Institute Program Manager Jenni Harpring at Jharpring@wustl.edu or call (314) 935-8182.

John Stezaker at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Jan. 27 to April 23

2011-12-05 00:00:00

John Stezaker, Mask X, 1982. Collage, 9 11/16 x 7 1/8". Ringier Collection, Switzerland. © John Stezaker. Hi-res version available upon request.

In a culture defined by an indiscriminate onslaught of images, John Stezaker’s work conveys both a fascination with their lure and a critique of their seductive power.

Using classic movie stills, vintage postcards, book illustrations and other found materials, the contemporary British artist brings new meanings to old pictures, adjusting, inverting and slicing them together to create collages that are at once captivating and unsettling, eerie and elegant, nostalgic and absurd.

This spring, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will provide the only U.S. venue for the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition. Organized by the Whitechapel Gallery in London, in collaboration with Mudam in Luxembourg and the Kemper Art Museum, John Stezaker surveys his career through more than 90 works dating from the 1970s to the present.

Taken together, these works chronicle a lifelong investigation into the meanings generated by visual language and the ways those meanings are shaped by context and circumstance.

Coordinated by Karen K. Butler, assistant curator for the Kemper Art Museum, John Stezaker is roughly organized according to the artist’s use of series and various collage techniques.

Included are subtly manipulated found images, from a variety of sources; works created though excision and cutting; and found photographs layered together in startling new combinations.

Among the earliest works on view is Untitled (1977), a found black-and-white film still depicting a woman and man sitting at a piano. Stezaker initially received the print as a gift and unconsciously placed it upside down on a music stand.

“There it stayed for five years, until I decided it was a work in its own right,” Stezaker says in the accompanying catalog. “The right way up, the image shows a closed-eyed pianist, seemingly wrapped up in his own music. An admiring female, who could also stand as the muse, looks at him as he plays. When you turn it upside down, there is a kind of reversal: the muse in reflection somehow dominates the active musician, who becomes this strange sleeping figure.”

Film stills also figure prominently in Stezaker’s Marriage series. Splicing together publicity photos of classic movie stars, both male and female, Stezaker creates hybrid characters that appear both disjointed and oddly harmonious, their residual allure rendered poignant by the discrepancies between the elegantly mismatched features.

Conversely, the Dark Star series turns publicity portraits into cutout silhouettes, draining the image of celebrity and suggesting a more ambiguous presence, while the Mask series collages profiles of glamorous sitters with faded postcards of caves, hamlets and waterfalls, resulting in composite scenes that fuse portraiture with landscape.

Stezaker’s obsession with recasting old images achieves a kind of apotheosis in his Third Person Archive. Begun in 1976, this continuing series consists of hundreds of incidental figures collected from maps, atlases, geographic encyclopedias and obsolete travel illustrations dating to the 1920s and ’30s (when surrealism, an important influence on Stezaker’s work, was at a peak).

Reproduced as stamp-size miniatures, these peripheral characters, originally captured by chance or happenstance, are granted posthumous agency, their long-forgotten journeys now taking the center stage of our attention.

About the artist

Stezaker was born in England in 1949 and currently lives and works in London. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in the 1960s and has since taught at Central Saint Martins School of Art, Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art.

Since the 1970s, Stezaker has exhibited widely across the United Kingdom and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include Freiburg Kunstverein (2010); Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen (GAK) (2008); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2007); Stills Gallery, Edinburgh (2007); and White Columns, New York (2006).

Major group shows include Collage: The Unmonumental Picture, New Museum, New York (2008); Tate Triennial 2006—New British Art, Tate Britain, London (2006); The British Art Show 5 (2000); and the 40th Venice Biennale (1982).

Monograph

John Stezaker is accompanied by a fully illustrated monograph, the first overview of his work on paper, published by Ridinghouse in association with the Whitechapel Gallery. Essays by Dawn Ades and Michael Bracewell, as well as a conversation between the artist and curators Daniel F. Herrmann and Christophe Gallois, place Stezaker's work in a historical context and analyze his methodology and practice.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of WUSTL’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is committed to furthering critical thinking and visual literacy through a vital program of exhibitions, publications and accompanying events. The museum dates back to 1881, making it the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. Today, it boasts one of the finest university collections in the United States.

Support for John Stezaker is provided by James M. Kemper Jr.; the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation; the Hortense Lewin Art Fund; and members of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

John Stezaker will open with a public reception at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, and will remain on view through April 23, 2012. In addition, the Kemper Art Museum will host a panel discussion with Stezaker, Butler and Michael Newman, associate professor of art history, theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.

Both the exhibition and the panel discussion are free and open to the public. The Kemper Art Museum is located on Washington University’s Danforth Campus, immediately adjacent to Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Sam Fox School spring Public Lecture Series begins Jan. 20

2012-01-11 00:00:00

The National September 11 Memorial Pavilion in New York, designed by the international architecture firm Snøhetta. Craig Dykers, a co-founder of Snøhetta and the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture, will speak for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts' Public Lecture Series Feb. 1.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Public Lecture Series presents free weekly lectures by nationally and internationally recognized artists, architects, historians and critics.

This spring, the Public Lecture Series will feature talks by acclaimed Hungarian installation artist Balázs Kicsiny and by celebrated architect Craig Dykers, co-founder of Snøhetta in Oslo and New York.

Other highlights will include lectures by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, architect Monica Ponce de Leon, illustrator Jessica Hische, art historian Susan Laxton and sociologist Richard Sennett, whose work frequently examines the effects of urban living.

Kyna Leski of 3SIXØ Architecture will discuss her work Jan. 20. Pictured is the firm’s Shepherd of the Valley Chapel in Hope, R.I.

The series will begin at 4:30 p.m.Friday, Jan. 20, with a special presentation by Kyna Leski, a principal of 3SIXØ Architecture in Providence, R.I.

As professor and head of architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Leski authored the first semester architecture design curriculum and a related book, The Making of Design Principles (2007).

Her talk will serve to launch the Laskey Sophomore Design Challenge, sponsored by Studio L. During this intensive, weekend-long collaborative session, all current sophomore art and architecture students will work in teams to brainstorm ideas for a given design challenge.

The series will return to its regular 6:30 p.m. time slot Monday, Jan. 30, with a talk by Kicsiny, who was in residence last spring as the Sam Fox School’s Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist.

Kicsiny’s latest installation, Killing Time, opens Jan. 27 at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The piece was developed in conjunction with a class on the performative aspects of contemporary practice, which Kicsiny co-taught with lecturer Robert Gero. Components of the installation were fabricated by students in the class.

A reception for Kicsiny, co-sponsored by the Hungarian-Missouri Educational Partnership, will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum.

Dykers, the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture, will discuss his work Wednesday, Feb. 1. Major projects include design of Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo and the recently opened National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the former World Trade Center site in New York.

In addition, later this spring, Dykers will chair the jury for the Sam Fox School’s 2012 Steedman Fellowship in Architecture International Design Competition.

All talks are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, each will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall Auditorium and will be preceded by a reception at 6 p.m. Steinberg Hall is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards

The Public Lecture Series is supported in part by funds from: Washington University’s Provost’s Office Diversity & Inclusion Grants and Washington University Student Union.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Spring 2012 Public Lecture Series

4:30 p.m. Jan. 20
Kyna Leski
Principal, 3SIXØ Architecture, Providence, R.I.
Professor and head of architecture, Rhode Island School of Design
Laskey Sophomore Design Challenge Lecture

Jan. 30
Balázs Kicsiny
Artist, Budapest, Hungary
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture
* 5:30 p.m. reception, Kemper Art Museum

Feb. 1
Craig Dykers
Co-founder, Snøhetta, Oslo and New York
Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor Lecture

Feb. 6
Michael Van Valkenburgh
Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Cambridge, Mass.
Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

4:30 p.m. Feb. 13
Diane Victor
Artist, South Africa
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture

Feb. 13
Monica Ponce de Leon
Design director, MPdL Studio
Dean and Eliel Saarinen Collegiate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
Cannon Design Lecture for Excellence in Architecture and Engineering

Feb. 15
Brigitte Shim
Principal, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto
Associate professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto
Coral Courts Lecture

Feb. 20
Jessica Hische
Illustrator, Brooklyn, N.Y.

7 p.m. Feb. 27; Reception 6:30 p.m.
Mabel Wilson
Associate professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University

Feb. 29
Wang Shu
Chief architect, Amateur Architecture Studio
Professor and dean, School of Architecture, China Academy of Art
Fumihiko Maki Lecture

March 5
Susan Laxton
Assistant professor of art history, University of California, Riverside

March 7
Robert Bruegmann
University Distinguished Professor of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Illinois at Chicago
AIA St. Louis Scholarship Trust Lecture

March 21
Claudia Bernardi
Professor of community arts, diversity studies and visual and critical studies, California College of the Arts, San Francisco and Oakland

March 26
Adam Budak
Curator for contemporary art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
* Reception in the Kemper Art Museum

March 30
Gregg Pasquarelli
Founding partner, SHoP Architects
Keynote Lecture: Digital Desires Symposium
Graduate Architecture Open House Lecture

April 4
Chelsea Knight
Artist, New York
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow Lecture

April 11
Barbara Kasten
Professor of photography, Columbia College, Chicago

April 16
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Artist, Houston, Texas
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture

April 18
Richard Sennett
Professor emeritus of sociology, London School of Economics
University Professor, New York University
Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture

April 23
Julia Bryan-Wilson
Associate professor, modern and contemporary art, University of California, Berkeley
Multiple Feminisms Lecture

Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time opens at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Jan. 27

Liam Otten — 2012-01-03 00:00:00

Balázs Kicsiny, The Cobbler’s Apprentice (film production shot), 2005. Digital video, looped. Photo by Tihanyi-Bakos Fotóstúdió. Kicsiny's latest installation, Killing Time, will open at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Jan. 27. Hi-res images available upon request.

The army, the circus and the restaurant: three diverse institutions, each embodying distinct ideas about the nature of service. In Killing Time, Hungarian installation artist Balázs Kicsiny both investigates and conflates these institutions and their raisons d'être — to protect or kill, to entertain and to feed — immersing viewers in fragmentary, disquieting and sometimes absurdist narratives that challenge assumptions about who is serving whom, and to what purpose.

In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time, Kicsiny’s newest installation and his first U.S. museum exhibition, developed while in-residence last spring with the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

As the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist, Kicsiny spent two months co-teaching a class on the performative aspects of contemporary practice, while also engaging students in the fabrication of components for the installation. The class was led in collaboration with Robert Gero, lecturer in the Sam Fox School, who also serves as curator for the exhibition.

Seemingly poised on the edge of violence, Killing Time is anchored by two pairs of life-sized figures. In the first, a male figure, dressed as a chef, stands with knives in hand, facing a female figure dressed as a waitress and strapped to a spinning disk. Both wear military helmets outfitted with small video cameras, their faces covered in identical checkerboard head stockings.

The second pair, wearing similar headgear, are seated nearby and gaze downward at a table of video monitors. Overlooking both scenes is a large circular form, mounted high on a gallery wall, into which knives have been thrown to create a pattern of clock arms and numbers.

“These scenes taken together may evoke an unsettling sense of disorientation or unease in the viewer, since they create a fragmented narrative, a puzzle of sorts, with no fixed meanings,” Gero says. “The protagonists are caught in a frozen performance, a moment of some strange, nonrational event, a dichotomy of perpetual motion and immobility.

“The title, Killing Time, alludes less to violence than to a play with the concept of time and time-consciousness,” Gero adds. “Kicsiny visualizes on one hand Aristotle’s connection between time and motion — that is, objective time, time as the means by which the motion of objects through space is measured. Here every moment is a process, a going-by. In this installation, Kicsiny has slowed the infinite succession to a standstill, freeing the notion of time from a subjugation to the concept of space.

“In doing so, he introduces another reading of ‘killing time’ as a form of timelessness. By stretching a present moment, these captured scenes fold time back onto itself as infinitesimal movement, not so much stillness as durational slowness.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, Kicsiny will lecture about his work Jan. 30 for the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series. See below for details.

Balázs Kicsiny

One of Hungary’s most highly regarded contemporary artists, Kicsiny is known for creating large-scale, multimedia installations, or “frozen performances,” that draw on the languages of theater, philosophy and the visual arts.

Born in Salgótarján in 1958, Kicsiny attended the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied painting and mural arts and now lectures.

His work has been featured in four exhibitions at the Hungarian National Gallery; in the 2005 Venice Biennale; in the 2005 Baltic Biennale; and in solo shows in New York, London and throughout Europe. His numerous honors include Hungary’s Munkácsy Award and Eötvös Scholarship as well as grants from the Art Council of England.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

Support for Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time was provided by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Art Endowment Fund, the Sam Fox School’s College and Graduate School of Art and members of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time will open with a reception for the artist from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, and will remain on view through April 16. Both the reception and the lecture are free and open to the public.

In addition, Kicsiny will lecture about his work at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium as part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series.

The Kemper Art Museum is located immediately adjacent to Steinberg Hall on Washington University’s Danforth Campus, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

CALENDAR SUMMARY

WHO: Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

WHAT: Exhibition of Kicsiny’s work

WHEN: Jan. 27 to April 16. Opening reception from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27.

WHERE: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, near the intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards.

HOURS: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Closed Tuesdays.

COST: Free and open to the public

INFORMATION: (314) 935-4523 or kemperartmuseum@wustl.edu

Double or Nothing

Liam Otten — 2011-12-15 00:00:00

David Kilper

Double or Nothing, a new “stickwork” by internationally known artist Patrick Dougherty, was commissioned this fall by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Located on the south lawn of Givens Hall, the piece was constructed by Dougherty and Sam Fox School students and will remain on view through December 2013.

There is an undeniable romanticism to the sculpture of Patrick Dougherty. Working with the simplest of materials — sticks, branches and saplings — the North Carolina-based artist creates playful architectural forms that variously suggest nests, primitive shelters and fairy-tale castles.

This fall, Dougherty enlisted dozens of students to help construct Double or Nothing, a new commission for Washington University in St. Louis’ Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Located along Forsyth Boulevard, on the south lawn of Givens Hall, the piece consists of two large woven-wood structures, each rising approximately 20 feet in the air.

“I think of myself as a sculptor, and I think of sticks as worthy sculptural material,” says Dougherty, the Sam Fox School’s 2011 Louis D. Beaumont Artist in Residence.

“People have a visceral response and connection to sticks,” says Dougherty, who to date has created approximately 200 “stickworks,” as he calls them. “People tell stories about their favorite trees. I just had to figure out what birds and beavers already knew about fitting sticks together.”

Double or Nothing grew out of a master class, titled “Stickwork on Campus,” co-taught by Dougherty and Ron Fondaw, professor of art. (Funding for the project was provided by the Sam Fox School Dean's Office and by the Colleges of Art and Architecture.)

Sixteen graduate and advanced undergraduate students — drawn from art, architecture and the new Master of Landscape Architecture program — met with Dougherty for an initial site visit last August, then attended a series of lectures on public art and architecture.

In late October, students began gathering materials (i.e., sticks) in preparation for Dougherty’s formal residency, which lasted about three weeks. Construction began Nov. 1 and was led by the artist, who trained the class in methods for bending, twisting, braiding, wefting and otherwise shaping wood. Joining the group were several dozen volunteers, including freshmen and sophomores from Associate Professor Cheryl Wassenaar’s “Eco Art” studio, for a total workforce of about 50 people.

“It’s been the perfect synthesis of art, architecture and landscape architecture,” Fondaw says. “And Patrick is the consummate teacher. He’s patient, he’s persistent and he’s caring.”

Fondaw estimates that, in all, students harvested about 20,000 sticks, mostly dogwood and willow, from various sites in Missouri and Illinois. Cut green and lightly pruned, the sticks were bundled, loaded onto a flatbed trailer and transported back to campus.

Construction unfolded in three phases. First, Dougherty and students established their perimeter by digging postholes and sinking thick branches vertically into the ground. Onto this base they wove a “crust” of smaller, more tightly thatched branches, thus giving the piece shape and weight. The third and final phase consisted of editing, or “aestheticizing,” that crust, in order to highlight, and occasionally de-emphasize, particular elements.

“You’re constantly developing the line logic, trying to create that illusion of movement,” Dougherty says. The artwork should not so much sit on the ground as appear to emanate from it, like a root, while the viewer should be pulled along by smooth transitions from exterior to interior spaces. “Windows, doors, rims — we work really hard on those focal points.”

The finished sculpture, which was dedicated Nov. 21, consists of two tower-like structures, each comprising a relatively thin outer wall, approximately 15 feet in diameter, and a stout central column, about the width of a large tree trunk. The outer wall flares dramatically at its top, while the inner column rises several feet above it, at once suggesting a domed roof and the brambly pistil of some massive woven flower.

“It’s very much like drawing,” Dougherty says. “Any line you can draw with a pencil, you can draw with a stick — and erase if it isn’t working.” And, like a graphite mark that begins heavily but lightens as the hand travels away from the body, “sticks are naturally tapered and imply a sense of motion. All the conventions that you might use with your pencil — creating lines, excising lines, adding new lines and feathering them together — you can use with sticks.”

Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School and associate professor of architecture — who organized Dougherty’s residency — notes that, “Double or Nothing represents the enthusiasms and collaborative mission of the Sam Fox School in a very public way. The project unites techniques of making drawn from art, architecture and landscape architecture.

“But it also embodies the enthusiasm and good will of the entire university community,” says MacKeith, who worked with facilities, community relations and other areas to bring Double or Nothing to fruition.

“This is a process as much as a product for the school and the university.”

Media advisory: Weaving architecture

2011-11-16 00:00:00

A new, as-yet-untitled artwork by internationally known artist Patrick Dougherty will be dedicated Monday, Nov. 21, at Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Photo by Stan Strembicki.

WHO: Artist Patrick Dougherty, internationally known for crafting large-scale sculptures from locally harvested tree saplings.

Artist Patrick Dougherty (center) works with students in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts to complete a new, as-yet-untitled woven-wood sculpture. Photo by Stan Strembicki.

WHAT: A monumental, as-yet-untitled woven-wood sculpture commissioned by Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

WHERE: South lawn of Givens Hall, located along Forsyth Boulevard just west of the intersection with Skinker Boulevard.

WHEN: A dedication ceremony will be held at noon, Monday, Nov. 21. The artwork will remain on view through fall 2013.

COST: Free and open to the public

MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Dougherty; Ron Fondaw, professor of art; and Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School. Student volunteers also will be in attendance.

ABOUT THE PROJECT: Combining carpentry skills with a love of nature, Dougherty weaves, bends and flexes saplings and sticks into playful architectural forms that suggest themes of shelter, environment and sustainability.

This fall, Dougherty served as the 2011 Louis D. Beaumont Artist in Residence in the Sam Fox School, leading a “Masterclass in Art & Architecture: Stickwork on Campus.” Co-taught with professor Ron Fondaw, the class included 16 students drawn from architecture, landscape architecture and the visual arts, all of whom assisted Dougherty in the creation of this new work, which consists of two large woven structures, the tallest of which rises approximately 20 feet in the air.

Based in Chapel Hill, NC, Dougherty has completed more than 200 such sculptures around the world. Stickwork, a monograph about his art, was released in 2010 by Princeton Architectural Press.

PHOTO OP: In addition to the dedication ceremony, Dougherty and students are currently nearing completion of the sculpture and will be on site for the rest of the week.

To arrange an interview or b-roll, call Liam Otten at 314-935-8494 (office); 314-324-2076 (cell); 314-863-4296 (weekend) or email liam_otten@wustl.edu.

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design ranked 4th in nation

Liam Otten — 2011-11-10 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis’ Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has been ranked 4th in the nation, according to DesignIntelligence, which publishes an annual guide, America’s Best Architecture and Design Schools.

The 13th annual report polled leaders from 277 architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design and interior design firms about which programs have, over the last five years, best prepared students for professional practice.

Washington University previously was ranked 9th.

“This is our highest ranking to date and a significant national recognition of the excellent work and tremendous dedication of our architecture students and alumni,” says Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts.

“It is also testament to the deep commitment of our outstanding faculty,” Colangelo says. “Under the leadership of Kathryn Dean, director of graduate architecture, and Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture, the school has built on its collective strengths and expertise while also attracting a host a visiting professionals. The result is a rigorous and relevant curricular structure that addresses the central issues of 21st-century design.”

In addition to professional practitioners, the report surveys deans and department chairs of 111 undergraduate and graduate programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. More than 2,300 architecture and landscape architecture students completed satisfaction surveys about their education. (Both sets of data are presented separately from the rankings.)

“Over the years, Washington University has earned a reputation for fostering a strong practice-based tradition,” says Lindsey, the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration. “But a program is only as good as the faculty it supports, the students it inspires and the alumni who define the field. Ultimately, this is a tribute to our entire community.”

Dean says that the key to training young architects is balancing a comprehensive, hands-on studio experience with exposure to cutting-edge technologies and a solid background in architectural history and theory.

“When our students walk out the door, they not only know how to conceptualize and design a project, but also how to construct it,” Dean says. “Our goal is to give aspiring architects all the tools they need to build their dreams.”

The rankings are compiled using data from surveys conducted and analyzed by DesignIntelligence staff. Participants are queried about how programs rated in various skill sets, including design; sustainability; analysis and planning; construction methods and materials; research and theory; communication skills; and computer applications.

Research is aided by information provided by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, the National Architectural Accreditation Board, the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board and the Council for Interior Design Accreditation.

The top 10 graduate programs are:

1. Harvard University
2. Yale University
3. Columbia University
4. Washington University in St. Louis
5. Kansas State University
6. Cornell University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
10. University of Cincinnati

The complete rankings are available as both a print edition and as a downloadable pdf from di.net/archschools/schools.

Cities of the Future Film Series Dec. 6, 7 and 8

2011-11-08 00:00:00

Brigitte Helm as Maria in the newly restored version of Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking science fiction parable. Hi-res version available upon request.

The city of the future is a utopian confection of luxurious modernist skyscrapers, except when it’s a hidden nightmare of exploited subterranean workers, a comedy of anonymous office spaces or a collection of geodesic domes orbiting Saturn.

Throughout the 20th century, filmmakers have explored the ever-quickening pace of technological development through visionary images of both social and architectural space. Beginning Tuesday, Dec. 6, and running through Thursday, Dec. 8, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present three iconic films as part of its Cities of the Future Film Series.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific, the film festival will screen Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis (Dec. 6), Jacques Tati’s 1967 Playtime (Dec. 7) and Douglas Trumbull’s 1971 Silent Running (Dec. 8).

All three screenings are free and open to the public and begin at 7 p.m. at the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd.

Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific highlights recent projects by the internationally acclaimed experimental artist. Inspired by clouds, bubbles, spider webs and other natural structures, Saraceno’s utopian projects investigate connections between social, ecological and technological systems, while raising pointed questions about the future of our own relationship with an increasingly fragile natural world.

The exhibition remains on view through Jan. 9, 2012, at the Kemper Art Museum, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information about the film festival or the exhibition, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot in Playtime (1967), his satire of mid-century modernism.

Schedule of Events

7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6
Metropolis (1927)
Directed by Fritz Lang

Set in the year 2026, this early science fiction classic depicts a dystopian future in which oppressed workers are forced to live underground while wealthy capitalists enjoy the splendid, towering city above. The story centers on Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), son of the city’s master, who is oblivious to the workers’ plight until encountering Maria (Brigitte Helm), a subterranean dweller who preaches a gospel of universal brotherhood. The screening will showcase a newly restored version of the film, which includes 25 minutes of previously lost footage.

7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7
Playtime (1967)
Directed by Jacques Tati

Playtime presents a farcical vision of Paris in the near future, with badly designed modernistic skyscrapers and housing projects. Tati plays Monsieur Hulot, a Parisian who is befuddled by the influences of modern architecture and modern technology on his city, which has grown increasingly crowded with tourists. As Hulot roams the uncomfortably modern Paris, he gets easily lost amidst an abundance of too-similar circulation spaces and glass-enclosed waiting rooms. This comedic film reflects a general disenchantment with 1950s and ’60s architectural modernism.

Bruce Dern as ecologist Freeman Lowell in Silent Running (1971).

7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8
Silent Running (1971)
Directed by Douglas Trumbull

Silent Running is an eco-science fiction film that depicts a ruined future in which all plant life on Earth has become extinct. Huge, orbiting spaceships with large greenhouse-like geodesic domes preserve the last remaining trees in the hopes of an eventual return to Earth and the reforestation of the planet. When resident botanist and ecologist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) receives an order to destroy the domes with nuclear charges, he refuses, with disastrous result for himself and his crew members.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is committed to furthering critical thinking and visual literacy through a vital program of exhibitions, publications and accompanying events. The museum dates back to 1881, making it the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. Today, it boasts one of the finest university collections in the United States.

Calendar Summary

WHO: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

WHAT: Cities of the Future Film Festival

WHEN: 7 p.m. Dec.6, 7 and 8

WHERE: Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd.

COST: Free and open to the public

INFORMATION: (314) 935-4523 or kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu

WUSTL named a top producer of U.S. Fulbright students

Debbie Parker — 2011-11-07 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis recently was named one of the top producers of U.S. Fulbright students, based on outcomes of the 2011-12 competition.

The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, recently announced the complete list of top-producing colleges and universities. The success of the 42 top-producing institutions is highlighted in the Oct. 24 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Eleven out of 47 WUSTL applicants received Fulbright scholarships, a 23.4 percent yield. While other research institutions received more grants than WUSTL, there are few that had better outcomes with similar numbers of applicants.

“This honor speaks to the strength and talent of our students as well as the commitment of our WUSTL Fulbright Campus Committee to provide constructive support to our applicants,” says Amy C. Suelzer, PhD, Fulbright Program adviser and assistant director of International and Area Studies in Arts & Sciences. “This support enables the applications that come through the Washington University campus evaluation process to perform well in the national competition.”

Of the 11 WUSTL Fulbright scholarship recipients, seven are recently graduated Arts & Sciences seniors, three are Arts & Sciences graduate students and one is an architecture graduate student in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. The WUSTL Fulbright recipients are positioned around the globe – in Belarus, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Turkey and Uruguay. They will spend a full academic year abroad.

Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

“As Washington University pursues its goals of advancing global engagement, the Fulbright program has been an important and early indicator of success in this area,” says Priscilla Stone, PhD, assistant provost for international education and director of overseas programs in Arts & Sciences. “We are continually impressed by the quality and preparation of our students to qualify for these prestigious awards.”

Nationwide, nearly 1,700 students, artists and young professionals in 100-plus fields of study were offered Fulbright Program grants to study, teach English and conduct research in more than 140 countries beginning this fall. Students receiving awards for this academic year applied through 600 colleges or universities. Lists of Fulbright recipients are available at fulbrightonline.org/us.

The primary source of funding for the program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit fulbright.state.gov.

What can art learn from ecology?

2011-10-19 00:00:00

Detail of 80SW Iridescent / Flying Garden / Air-Port-City (2011) installed in Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (Sept. 9, 2011 to Jan. 9, 2012). Artwork courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. Photo by Whitney Curtis.

What can art learn from ecology?

It’s a question posed both implicitly and explicitly by visionary artist Tomás Saraceno. Inspired by clouds, bubbles, spider webs and other natural structures, Saraceno’s utopian projects range from an elevator to space and instructions for building a geodesic solar balloon to a sustainable airborne city that renders obsolete the very idea of an “environmental footprint.”

At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present “A Sustainable Future,” an interdisciplinary panel discussion held in conjunction with the exhibition Tomás Saraceno: Cloud Specific.

Moderated by Eric Mumford, professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, the discussion will explore conceptual concerns raised by Saraceno’s artistic practice, which frequently involves collaboration with architects, engineers, chemists, botanists and physicists, among others.

Topics will include the scientific, cultural and aesthetic dimensions of sustainability today as well as the legacy of the utopian impulse in contemporary art and architecture. In addition, participants will discuss their own current research and how it relates to larger questions of environmental and social sustainability.

Participants are:

Joseph Jez, PhD, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences;
Lutz Koepnick, PhD, professor of Germanic languages and literatures  in Arts & Sciences;
Meredith Malone, PhD, associate curator, Kemper Art Museum;
Igor Marjanovic, associate professor of architecture, Sam Fox School; and
Brent Williams, PhD,assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering.

“A Sustainable Future” is free and open to the public and will take place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. A reception will follow, at 6:30 p.m., in the Kemper Art Museum.

Tomás Saraceno: Cloud Specific remains on view through Jan. 9, 2012. Regular museum hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

Steinberg Hall and the Kemper Art Museum are located adjacent to one another, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

CALENDAR SUMMARY

WHO: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

WHAT: “A Sustainable Future” panel discussion

WHEN: 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. Reception 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: Steinberg Hall Auditorium, intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards. Reception in Kemper Art Museum.

COST: Free and open to the public.

SPONSOR: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

INFORMATION: (314) 935-4523 or kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu

Sukkah City STL installed on Danforth Campus

2011-10-19 00:00:00

Ten cutting-edge Sukkahs by architects and designers from around the nation were installed on the Danforth Campus Oct. 17, just south of the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building. The projects, which remain on view through Saturday, Oct. 22, are winners of Sukkah City STL, an ambitious contemporary design competition that challenged participants to reimagine the traditional Jewish Sukkah — a small, temporary structure erected each fall during the weeklong festival of Sukkot — through the lens of contemporary art and architecture. The competition was sponsored by St. Louis Hillel, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and The Museum of ImaJewnation.

Brookings, WUSTL Academic Venture Fund grant recipients announced

Jessica Martin — 2011-10-18 00:00:00

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and Washington University in St. Louis announce recipients of grants from the joint Academic Venture Fund (AVF).

The purpose of the AVF is to support collaboration between scholars at WUSTL and the Brookings Institution, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy.

The grant awardees and projects are:

Peter MacKeith, associate dean and associate professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at WUSTL, and Rob Puentes, senior fellow and director of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, part of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, for “The Innovative Metropolis: Fostering Economic Competitiveness through Sustainable Urban Design” project.  
Pietro Nivola, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and Peter Kastor, PhD, associate professor of history and of American culture studies, both in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, for the “What So Proudly We Hailed: Essays on Contemporary Meaning of the War of 1812” project.

AVF grants are available in amounts from $20,000 to $50,000. Interested fellows, faculty, staff, centers, institutes and programs can continue to submit proposals for review in summer 2012.

The AVF also offers smaller grants for events or travel by Brookings and university personnel. These proposals can be submitted at any time and will be reviewed on a rolling basis. A committee from Brookings and the university will review the proposals.

The AVF program is under the direction of law Dean Kent D. Syverud, JD, the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor and associate vice chancellor for Washington, D.C., programs.

The academic partnership between the university and Brookings began in 2009. The institutions now offer joint programs, including internships, lectures and other educational activities. The Olin Business School also leads management of the Brookings Center for Executive Education.

For more information about the AVF grants, call Tomea Mersmann at (314) 935-6486 or email mersmann@wustl.edu.

Building architecture, building community

Liam Otten — 2011-10-17 00:00:00

David Kilper

Forrest Fulton, visiting assistant professor of architecture, surveys “Learning Landscape,” a 10,000-square-foot “outdoor classroom” for the Patrick Henry Academy downtown. The project is the first to be completed under the auspices of CityStudioSTL, a new community service and outreach program co-sponsored by the Sam Fox School and the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

Built in 1906, Patrick Henry Academy is an historic elementary school located in St. Louis’ Columbus Square neighborhood, within view of the Gateway Arch and the Edward Jones Dome.

But returning for the start of fall classes, students and teachers found a sight that, for downtown residents, is perhaps even more unusual: a thriving urban garden, complete with corn, peppers and tomato plants.

Over the summer, architecture students and faculty from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis completed work on “Learning Landscapes,” a 10,000-square-foot outdoor classroom situated on what had been a cracking asphalt lot.

“This all grew out of a student design-build project,” says Forrest Fulton, visiting assistant professor of architecture, who led the class of 16. “Students met with the principal, looked at case studies, worked on design proposals and then developed the master plan.

“The idea was to create a flexible green space with distinct spaces for learning, discussion and active play.”

Divided into three sections, the completed landscape features rolling earthen mounds covered in native grasses and linked by pathways of European-style crushed limestone. A series of raised planting beds overflow with herbs, eggplants and other crops. The dedicated seating area boasts rough-hewn limestone benches and a raised wooden walkway that doubles as a low stage.

“Students often imagine that an artist or architect is someone who has a vision and then others just figure it out,” Fulton says. “But it’s not really like that. It’s about solving problems. It’s about addressing technical issues and working with partners and managing available resources.

“In many ways, ‘Learning Landscape’ became an exercise in recruiting and facilitating help from the broader St. Louis construction industry,” Fulton says.

He notes that students raised more than $60,000 in donated goods and services. For example, a portion of the grading was done by McLaren Grading and Excavation, while Clayco, a St. Louis construction company, provided a large cash grant. Other donations included pavers, topsoil and trees. Jim Fetterman, a lecturer in landscape architecture, provided critical advice and industry contacts.

“This kind of project becomes an anchor,” Fulton says. “It allows people from around St. Louis to re-engage with their community.”

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CityStudioSTL

“Learning Landscape” is the first project completed under the auspices of CityStudioSTL, a new program that, over the next five years, will offer community engagement and outreach projects throughout the St. Louis area.

Co-sponsored by the Sam Fox School and the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies — with additional support from Gina and Bill Wischmeyer — CityStudioSTL builds on a long tradition of community-focused architectural classes and projects.

For example, Carl Safe, professor emeritus of architecture, has directed design-build studios in the University City Loop, Heman Park, Grand Center and elsewhere. Gay Lorberbaum, senior lecturer in architecture, has led a series of architecture workshops for K-12 students, including a mentoring program at Patrick Henry. Last spring and summer, a digital fabrication studio led by Ken Tracy, visiting assistant professor of architecture, designed and constructed Plasti(k) Pavilion, a collaboration with architect Marc Fornes, in Botanical Heights.

“This kind of work has been going on at the Sam Fox School for a long time,” says Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture and E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration.

“CityStudioSTL is meant to gather these sorts of projects under an umbrella that can provide both support and a conceptual foundation," Lindsey says. "The idea is to create a space within the curriculum that allows things to happen that might not happen otherwise.”

Stan Strembicki

Students at work in Hyde Park, as part of the CityStudioSTL project “Somethingness: Ways of Seeing and Building,” led by visiting artist Theaster Gates, Jr.

‘Somethingness’

In addition to “Learning Landscapes,” this past summer CityStudioSTL sponsored a second project, titled “Somethingness: Ways of Seeing and Building.”

Offered in partnership with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the intensive three-week design-build course was led by Theaster Gates Jr., a visiting artist whose social-based practice combines art, urban planning and community activism.

As founder of Rebuild Foundation, Gates has spent much of the last year in St. Louis’ Hyde Park neighborhood, working to transform a dilapidated mixed-use building into a small art center for students at nearby Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church and School.

Despite the course’s three-week timeframe, “It was really important to us all that we try to create something that was high-impact,” Gates says. “So we took the back part of the building, which was in pretty bad shape, and made that the focus of our CityStudio project.”

Working with Gates, master builder John Preus, and Belinda Lee, the Sam Fox School’s coordinator of special undergraduate programs, the class of 12 undergraduate and graduate students — representing art, architecture, social work and other disciplines — began by interviewing Trinity students and other local residents. They then developed a series of design proposals and, ultimately, constructed a small amphitheater in the rear of the property.

“Most of the first week was spent shoring up the building,” says Lee, noting that much of the work was completed with recycled materials. Students also replaced a large section of wall with a garage-style door, thus allowing the building’s interior to be opened to the outside.

“This project was all about community service,” Lee says. “We wanted to make changes that would have lasting affects.”

Gates, who also serves as director of arts and public life for the University of Chicago, will speak about “Somethingess” and his practice for the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19. The talk is free and open to the public and takes place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. For more information, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

What the place can become

Next spring, CityStudioSTL — and Fulton — will return to Columbus Square in order to continue building on the relationships established by “Learning Landscapes.”

CityStudioSTL projects, “should occur organically, through understanding, engaging and organizing within the neighborhood,” Fulton says. Some projects may be conceived, designed and completed within the course of a single semester. Others may require work over the longer term.

In either case, Fulton says, “We will listen to what residents, officials, experts and planners have to tell us about the place, and about what the place can become.”

12 current or former WUSTL students receive competitive Fulbright scholarships

2011-10-12 00:00:00

Twelve current or former Washington University in St. Louis students have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships to study, conduct research and/or teach English abroad for the 2011-12 academic year.

Eight are recently graduated Arts & Sciences seniors, three are Arts & Sciences graduate students and one is an architecture graduate student in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

They are among 1,600 U.S. citizens who will spend a full academic year in a host country through the Fulbright Program.

The graduate students, along with their fields and locations of study, are: James Palmer, a doctoral student in history in Arts & Sciences, who will study cultural and intellectual history in Italy; Sara Potter, a doctoral student in Hispanic languages and literatures in Arts & Sciences, who will study language and literature in Mexico; Elika Pourbohloul, a master’s degree student in comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, who will have an English teaching assistantship in Turkey; and Maja Tokic, a master’s degree student in architecture in the Sam Fox School, who will study art and architectural history in Finland.

The May 2011 Arts & Sciences graduates and their fields and locations of study are: Kimberly Bolch, who earned a bachelor’s degree in international and area studies and a minor in English, has an English teaching assistantship in Brazil; Lucy Gellman, who earned a bachelor’s degree in art history and archaeology with minors in French language and literature and in women, gender, and sexuality studies, is studying art and architectural history in France;

Kimberly Hartstein, who earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and anthropology, is conducting research in Germany; Amber Jennings, a double major in international and area studies and Spanish and a minor in psychology, has an English teaching assistantship in Brazil; Laura McGinnis, a double major in economics and Spanish and a minor in art, has an English teaching assistantship in Argentina;

Alexander Miller, a double major in Germanic languages and literatures and political science, has an English teaching assistantship in Germany; and Ariana Tobin, a double major in English literature and women, gender, and sexuality studies, has an English teaching assistantship in Belarus.

Recent graduate, Steven Winslow, an anthropology major with minors in South Asian languages and literatures as well as international and area studies, has an English teaching assistantship in Taiwan.

“It is a pleasure to see so many of our students selected to receive this highly competitive scholarship,” says Amy C. Suelzer, PhD, assistant director of international and area studies in Arts & Sciences and the university’s Fulbright Program adviser.

“Their success is an acknowledgment of the caliber of individuals who attend the university. We wish our Fulbright recipients much success in their Fulbright year and beyond,” Suelzer says.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. It is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.

The U.S. Congress established the Fulbright Program in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

The primary source of funding for the program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State.

Sukkah City STL announces winning designs

Liam Otten — 2011-10-05 00:00:00

60 degree Sukkah by Filip Tejchman is one of 10 winners of the design competition Sukkah City STL, on view at Washington University Oct. 18-22. Subtitled Defining & Defying Boundaries, the competition asks architects and designers to reimagine the traditional Jewish Sukkah. Hi-res images available upon request.

Ten cutting-edge Sukkahs by architects and designers from around the nation will be on display Oct. 18-22 on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

The projects are winners of Sukkah City STL, an ambitious contemporary design competition that challenged participants to reimagine the traditional Jewish Sukkah — a small, temporary structure erected each fall during the weeklong festival of Sukkot — through the lens of contemporary art and architecture.

“The holiday of Sukkot in Jewish tradition is a way of ceremonially dwelling on, and dwelling in, impermanence,” says Rabbi Andrew Kastner of St. Louis Hillel, which co-sponsored Sukkah City STL with the university’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and The Museum of ImaJewnation.

“Each of the proposals, in their own way have reimagined the ancient Sukkah, using it as a canvas to explore the role boundaries play in defining what it means to be human,” continues Kastner, who organized the competition with Brian Newman, adjunct lecturer of architecture in the Sam Fox School.

“The finalists have addressed this creative challenge through expressions of both the particular and the universal,” Kastner says. “We are certain that the installation will provoke deep and meaningful conversation.”

The 10 winning projects, by both individuals and teams of architects and designers, were selected from a field of more than 40 entries.

Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture in the Sam Fox School as well as the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration, chaired the competition jury. Other jurors included environmental designer Mitchell Joachim; Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney; and Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times.

Rounding out the jury were Hyim Shafner, rabbi at St. Louis’ Bais Abraham Congregation and former chief rabbi of India; and Nancy Berg, PhD, professor of modern Hebrew language and literature in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

Projects will be installed outdoors on the university’s Danforth Campus, near the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building.

“We didn’t quite know what to expect when we sent this project out into the world, but the response has been amazing,” Newman says. “The work, as a whole, is so thoughtful, so architecturally exciting, and the participants have all proved to be endlessly enthusiastic.

“We really can’t wait to see how these incredible conceptual structures come to life as built work.”

Additional support for Sukkah City STL was provided by the St. Louis Jewish Community Center and by the Sam Fox School’s Charles and Bunny Burson Art Fund.

For more information, call (314) 808-1486, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu/sukkahcitystl or email sukkahcitystl@gmail.com.

The Sukkah City STL winners are listed below. For detailed descriptions of their designs, view our slideshow.

Emery McClure Architecture
Lafayette, LA
Tené

Act3 (Ben Kaplan), Trivers Architecture and STL Beacon
St. Louis
Storycubes

Filip Tejchman
Brooklyn, NY, and Cambridge, MA
60 degree Sukkah

Sean Corriel
New York
Thru-motion

Lea Oxenhandler and Evan Maxwell Litvin
Philadelphia

Alexander Morley and Jennifer Wong
St. Louis
Exodus

Casey Hughes Architects
Los Angeles
Sukkah Collective

Christine Yogiaman, Forrest Fulton and Ken Tracy
St. Louis
Gleaned

John Kleinschmidt and Andy Sternad
New Orleans
L’Chime Sukkah

Bronwyn Charlton and Linda Levin
St. Louis
Heliotrope

CALENDAR SUMMARY

WHO: St. Louis Hillel at Washington University, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and The Museum of ImaJewnation

WHAT: Sukkah City STL: Defining & Defying Boundaries

WHEN: Oct. 18-22

WHERE: Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis, near the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building

COST: Free and open to the public

INFORMATION:(314) 808-1486, sukkahcitystl@gmail.com or samfoxschool.wustl.edu/sukkahcitystl.

Editor’s Note: A private reception for the winning teams will take place at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Media interested in attending should contact Liam Otten at (314) 935-8494.

Sam Fox School announces faculty research grants

Liam Otten — 2011-09-30 00:00:00

Lauren Adams, Pearlclutcher (detail) from the Lost Colony Project (2009-11). Digital vector drawing. Courtesy of the artist.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts has announced the recipients of its 2011 Faculty Creative Activity Research Grants.

Four art and architecture faculty members will each receive between $1,000 and $8,000 to support a variety of projects. These range from research about the Elizabethan “Lost Colony” of North Carolina and a monograph on Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck to a mobile art studio traveling the Gulf Coast and new methods of architectural fabrication in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“The Faculty Creative Activity Research Grants were established in 2007 and designed to support the professional and creative activities that are distinctive to architecture, design and art,” says Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School and E. Desmond Lee Professor of Collaboration in the Arts. “Supporting faculty research is a top priority, knowing that the creative activity of our faculty has played a key role in distinguishing us as a school.”

“The diversity and scope of past projects, both ideologically and geographically, has been impressive, and the four proposals being funded this year are no exception,” Colangelo says.

Recipients were chosen by a jury of tenured and tenure-track faculty, including several past grant awardees.

Recipients for 2011 are:

Lauren Adams, assistant professor of art.

The grant supports research and travel relating to her Lost Colony Project, a trans-Atlantic art installation comprising paintings, drawings and collages investigating the power dynamics of Elizabethan colonialism. The series centers on the story of — and mythmaking around — the so-called Lost Colony, a settlement on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, that vanished without explanation between 1587-90. The project is particularly inspired by the work of colonist John White, whose drawings and watercolors of native Algonquins and Secotans are among the most informative surviving illustrations of pre-colonial Native American culture.

Joan Hall, the Kenneth E. Hudson Professor of Art.

The grant supports the creation of The Gulf Project, a large-scale installation exploring the relationship between human beings and the sea. Hall, an internationally known artist as well as an experienced sailor, has frequently addressed nautical themes in her work. For this project, she is outfitting an RV as a mobile art studio and traveling along the Gulf of Mexico, from Port Arthur, Texas, to New Orleans, documenting the aftereffects of the infamous Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Robert McCarter, the Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture.

The grant supports publication of the first comprehensive monograph on Aldo van Eyck (1918-99), arguably the most influential of the second generation of Modern architects. The book particularly focuses on two aspects of van Eyck’s career: his built and unbuilt works, which, though relatively few in number, helped form a new paradigm for 20th-century Modern architecture; and his writings and lectures, which critiqued mainstream mid-century Modernism while exploring the importance of architecture to the everyday lives of people around the world.

Christine Yogiaman, assistant professor of architecture.

The grant facilitates research and fabrication of three full-scale architectural assembly prototypes relating to a pair of projects now in development in Jakarta, Indonesia: Weft House, a single-family residence, and Cideng Office Structure, a seven-story flagship building for a steel manufacturing company. More specifically, the grant supports development of new systems of assembly designed to better integrate the latest advances in digital design and fabrication with the hands-on, material sensitivity of traditional construction tradespeople.

For more information about the Sam Fox School Faculty Creative Activity Research Grants, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Lighter than air

2011-09-29 00:00:00

Tomás Saraceno creates spectacular, gravity-defying installations and visionary sculptural models inspired by clouds, bubbles, spider webs and other natural structures. On Oct. 5, Saraceno — who was born in Argentina and now lives and works in Germany — will discuss his work as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series. The talk, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall, is held in conjunction with the exhibition Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific, on view through Jan. 9 at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. For more information, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu or kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.