Yve-Alain Bois to lecture for Sam Fox School Nov. 9

Critic and curator Yve-Alain Bois, a widely recognized expert on 20th-century European and American art, will present a lecture titled “Chance Encounters: John Cage, François Morellet, Ellsworth Kelly” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.

Yve-Alain Bois

The talk — held in conjunction with the exhibition Chance Aesthetics, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 4 — is part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series and is cosponsored by the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences. Steinberg Hall is located immediately adjacent to the Kemper Art Museum, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards.

A reception for Bois will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m. For more information call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

A faculty member at the School for Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ, Bois is the author of several widely translated books as well as more than 100 essays for exhibition catalogues, scholarly journals and other publications. He is also the curator of several influential exhibitions, including Piet Mondrian, A Retrospective (1994-95) for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Gemeentemuseum in The Hague; L’informe, mode d’emploi (“Formless: A User’s Guide, 1996) for Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; and Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry (1999) for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX.

The latter two exhibitions were each conceived in tandem with books. L’informe, mode d’emploi (with Rosalind Krauss, 1996) introduced concepts that transformed the understanding of avant-garde and modernist art practices. Matisse and Picasso (1998) traced the relationships not only between the two artists, but also between their works, their words and their views of art.

Ellsworth Kelly, *Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance V,* 1951. Collage on paper, 39 x 39″. Collection of the artist. © Ellsworth Kelly. From the exhibition *Chance Aesthetics,” on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 4.

Other books include Francis Picabia (1975); Arthur Lehning en Mondrian – Hun Vriendschap en correspondentie (“Lehning and Mondrian – Their Friendship and Correspondence,” 1984); Painting as Model (1990); and Martin Barré (1993). With Benjamin Buchloh, Rosalind Krauss and Hal Foster, he wrote Art since 1900 (2004), a major textbook on 20th-century art.

Current projects include a study of Barnett Newman’s paintings, the catalogue raisonné of Ellsworth Kelly’s paintings and sculptures, and the modern history of axonometric projection.

Bois holds a Doctorat de IIIeme cycle (Ph.D.) from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1977). A co-editor of the journal October, he also co-founded the journal Macula and remains an advisor to that publication’s book series.

Bois began his career at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris in 1977. He was on faculty at Johns Hopkins University from 1983 to 1991, at which time he accepted the Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Professorship of Modern Art in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Bois was acting chair of the department in 1999-2000 and from 2002-005, when he joined the Institute for Advanced Studies.