The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University will host a daylong symposium on Architecture, Art and the Experience of Blackness Thursday, March 6, in Steinberg Auditorium.
The symposium will bring together more than a dozen speakers whose creative and scholarly works intersect with issues of race and identity. The event will provide an opportunity for critical reflection on the role that race plays in the creation and interpretation of art and architecture.
“This is the first in a series of planned symposia that will explore issues of race, gender and ethnicity as they relate to the practice of architecture and the visual arts,” explains Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School as well as the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts. “These are critically important topics and we’re thrilled by the positive response we’ve received from all of our community partners.”
Architecture, Art and the Experience of Blackness is cosponsored by HOK, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis American and Grice Group Architects. Additional support is provided by Washington University’s Office of Diversity Initiatives as well as by the African & African American Studies Program and the Department of Art History & Archaeology, both in Arts & Sciences.
All events are free and open to the public but advance registration is required. Steinberg Auditorium is located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. For more information or to register, email samfoxschool@wustl.edu or call (314) 935-6597.
The symposium will begin with a coffee reception at 9:30 a.m., followed at 10 a.m. by opening remarks from Colangelo, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and university trustee Ronald L. Thompson.
The first panel, titled The (Dis)Location of Race, will take place from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Moderator will be Igor Marjanovic, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School.
Presenters include Willie Cole, an acclaimed artist whose work is currently featured in the exhibition On the Margins, on view through April 21 in the Sam Fox School’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Curated by Colangelo, the exhibition explores the impact of war and disaster on the work of contemporary artists.
Other presenters include Darell Fields, associate professor of architecture at the University of Arkansas and editor of the journal APPX, which explores black modernity within the context of architectural discourse; and Kymberly Pinder, chair of the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the Art Institute of Chicago, whose research focuses on critical race theory in visual culture.
Following a break for lunch, events will resume at 1 p.m. with remarks by Bruce Lindsey, the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration and dean of the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. A practicing architect, Lindsey from 2002-06 served as head of Auburn University’s acclaimed Rural Studio, helping students to design and build innovative “charity houses” that were then donated to impoverished local families.
The afternoon session, titled Practices of Centers and Margins, will begin immediately after Lindsey’s remarks. Moderator will be Tebogo Schultz, an architect with Christner, Inc., and vice-president of the St. Louis Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects.
Presenters include painter Radcliffe Bailey, whose works are included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute and the Smithsonian Institute, among many others; and Craig Barton, chair of the Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, whose practice focuses on helping African-American communities preserve and develop cultural resources.
Other presenters include Yolande Daniels, assistant professor of architecture at Columbia University and co-founder of the studio SUMO; and Hamza Walker, director of education and associate curator for the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, a non-collecting museum dedicated to contemporary art.
At 3:30 p.m. shuttles will ferry participants a half-mile east of campus to the Saint Louis Art Museum, where Andrew Walker, curator of American art, will present a gallery talk on the exhibition African American Abstraction: St. Louis Connections. On view through March 23, the exhibition highlights abstract works by four artists — Oliver Jackson, John Rozelle, Phillip J. Hampton and Michael Marshall — who have lived and worked in the St. Louis-area.
Participants will return to campus at 5:30 p.m. for a final roundtable discussion — titled Culture and its Discontents — featuring all of the day’s speakers. Moderator will be Krista Thompson, assistant professor of art history at Northwestern University. Thompson teaches courses on race and representation and the visual cultures of colonialism, among other topics, and is currently preparing a book about visual culture and black youth.
The symposium concludes at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Kemper Art Museum.
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WHO: Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts WHAT: Symposium, Architecture, Art and the Experience of Blackness WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 6 WHERE: Steinberg Hall Auditorium, intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards COST: Free and open to the public, though registration is required. SPONSOR: Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, HOK, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis American, Grice Group Architects, Washington University’s Office of Diversity Initiatives, African & African American Studies Program and the Department of Art History & Archaeology. INFORMATION:(314) 935-6597or samfoxschool@wustl.edu |