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Fall 2022 Public Lecture Series Announced

2022-08-26 • Liam Otten

A multi-part installation with a full-wall mural portrays a joyful party scene. The installation comprises framed portraits of Black individuals in vibrant, patterned garments; balloons and colorful bunting (real and painted); and, in the foreground, a white picnic table with blue, orange, and purple party hats. The paintings are executed in a graphic style, with segmented of color blocks reminiscent of stained glass.

Derrick Adams, “We Came to Party and Plan,” Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York, 2020.

Architects Hilary Sample and Thomas Phifer; artists Katharina Grosse, Derrick Adams and Meleko Mokgosi; and fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg are among the internationally renowned visual thinkers who will discuss their work as part of the fall Public Lecture Series sponsored by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Events will begin Thursday, Sept. 1, with Sample, co-founder of MOS Architects in New York. Established in 2003, the firm’s eclectic body of work ranges from housing and cultural spaces to furniture, exhibitions, books, software and video. MOS’ House with Two Chimneys, currently under construction as part of St. Louis’ On Olive project, reflects the city’s rich history of brick construction and craft.

Rendering of an imposing black building on a cobblestone street stands in direct contrast to a classical, white building across the street. A vast, light-filled entryway--many stories tall--welcomes passersby.

Thomas Phifer, rendering for the 900-seat TR Warszawa Theatre in Warsaw, Poland. Photo courtesy of Thomas Phifer.

Events will continue Sept. 7 with Adams, a Brooklyn-based artist and the Sam Fox School’s Bunny and Charles Burson Distinguished Visiting Lecturer, who will be interviewed by St. Louis artist Damon Davis. On Sept. 8, Daniel Jacobs and Brittany Utting of HOME-OFFICE, based in Houston, will discuss Field Station, their new project for the Sam Fox School’s Weil Project Wall.

Writer and photography curator David Campany will present a Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture Sept. 14. On Sept. 22, the Sam Fox School’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program will present comics scholar Douglas Wolk.

An action painting, where intense orange and lime green paint streaks back and forth across the canvas. Darker and hazier areas offer contrast in the background.

Grosse, one of Germany’s most acclaimed contemporary painters, will present a public Q&A Sept. 23 with Sabine Eckmann, the William T. Kemper Director and chief curator of WashU’s Mildred Kemper Art Museum. An exhibition opening for Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings, 1988-2022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions immediately follows.

Image: Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. 114 9/16 x 189 in. (291 x 480 cm). Courtesy of Gagosian. © Katharina Grosse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. (Photo: Jens Ziehe)

Shaun O’Dell, the Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist, will discuss his work Sept. 26. Artist and illustrator James McMullan, known for his influential theater posters and more than a dozen children’s books, will discuss his work Sept. 29. Painter Meleko Mokgosi, who served as the Sam Fox School’s 2021-22 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow, will discuss the work in his solo show on view as part of the Currents exhibition series at the Saint Louis Art Museum Sept. 30. Landscape architect Peter Osler will speak Oct. 5.

Von Furstenberg, whose distinguished career began in the early 1970s with her celebrated “wrap dress,” will discuss her work Oct. 12, in a talk co-sponsored by the Saint Louis Fashion Fund’s annual Speaking of Fashion series. Ethiopian designer Miriam Hillawi Abraham will discuss her work Nov. 3.

An overhead view of a residential area at dusk where unsual, contemporary housing meets a more traditional and modern neighborhood. In the foreground, one building made with pinkish brick looks almost like a traditional two-story house form, cut in two. Another series of cream-colored buildings employs cylindrical structures as a second story. Low hilltops rise in the distance to meet a peach and gray sky.

Housing No. 8 (Laboratorio de Vivienda), Apan, Mexico, 2018. Photo: MOS Architects/Jamie Navarro.

In an airy, contemporary gallery space, individuals view walls lined floor to ceiling with unframed and unmounted photographs.

Installation view, #ICPConcerned – Global Images for Global Crisis, curated by David Campany for the International Center of Photography Museum, New York, 2020. Photo courtesy of David Campany.

Phifer, whose recent projects include the Museum of Modern Art and TR Warszawa Theatre in Warsaw, will speak Nov. 10. Todd Gannon, author most recently of Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (2020) will lecture Nov. 17. Other speakers include artist Shana Moulton, known for humorous performances in the guise of her alter ego Cynthia, and Zurich-based architect Annette Helle (both dates TBD). For a complete list, see below.

On a cream background, abstract forms in grey, black, yellow, peach, and blue playfully interact with more stylized concrete forms like eyes, pyramids, leaves, and flowers.

Shaun O’Dell, Seeing Ghosts Between Ruins (2020). Ink and gouache and acrylic ink on paper mounted on canvas over panel.

View all fall 2022 Public Lecture Series Events

Fall 2022 Events

All events are free and open to the public and begin at 6p CT in the Sam Fox School’s Steinberg Hall, unless otherwise noted. For more information, call 314-935-9300.

September 1

Hilary Sample
MOS Architects
Harris Armstrong Fund Lecture
7p CDT

September 7

Derrick Adams interviewed by Damon Davis
Bunny and Charles Burson Distinguished Visiting Lecture

September 8

Daniel Jacobs and Brittany Utting (HOME-OFFICE)
Weil Project Wall Creator Talk

September 14

David Campany
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture

September 22

Douglas Wolk
In collaboration with the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture

September 23

Katharina Grosse, interviewed by Sabine Eckmann
In conjunction with Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings, 1988-2022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions. Exhibition opening to immediately follow at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

September 28

Shaun O’Dell
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist

September 29

James McMullan
Presented by the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture and Olin Library

September 30

Meleko Mokgosi
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow Lecture
In conjunction with Saint Louis Art Museum and the opening of Currents 122

October 3

Peter Osler
Visiting professor, Master of Landscape Architecture program

October 12

Diane von Furstenberg
In conjunction with the Saint Louis Fashion Fund’s Speaking of Fashion series
5:30p. Graham Chapel.

October 27

Shana Moulton
Visiting Lecturer Presented by the MFA in Visual Arts program

October 31

Maria Lisogorskaya
Founding director of Assemble
The Historic Preservation Lecture

November 3

Miriam Hillawi Abraham
In collaboration with Fox Fridays

November 10

Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners
CannonDesign Lecture for Excellence in Architecture and Engineering

November 17

Todd Gannon
Book talk and Undergraduate Architecture Lecture

TBD

Annette Helle
Helle Architektur
Ruth & Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture Lecture

TBD

Studio Mela
Wallace Herndon Smith Artists

TBD

Anika Todd
Beaumont Visiting Artist Lecture