A small white boat glows on a dark, tumultuous sea. Hands reach inside, impossibly, to grip the oars.
In “(Forever Free) Victory,” Michael Ray Charles offers Zen-like allegory — a visual koan, almost — about the relationship between liberty and self-determination. Is freedom the freedom to chart the course or merely the freedom to drown?
The quiet, haunting image stands in marked counterpoint to much of Charles’ work. Over the past 20 years, the painter has earned an international reputation for handsome, weathered-looking paintings that aggressively appropriate — and scathingly critique — the racist caricatures and stereotypes of vintage American illustration.
At 6:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 15, Charles will be on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis to discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the talk is the presented as part of WUSTL’s Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program.
In all, the series will feature 13 presentations by nationally and internationally known artists, architects, designers and scholars.
Events will continue Wednesday, Sept. 17, with British architect Dennis Crompton, a founding member of the visionary collective Archigram. Works by several of Crompton’s co-founders, including Peter Cook and Michael Webb, are featured in the exhibition “Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association,” which opens Friday, Sept. 12, at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
Other speakers will include Jaume Plensa (Oct. 1), whose sculpture “Ainsa I” was recently installed at the Olin Business School as part of WUSTL’s Art on Campus program; architect Peter Eisenman (Oct. 27), whose work also is featured in “Drawing Ambience”; and Nasrine Seraji (Nov. 7), who will deliver the keynote address for the symposium “Women in Architecture: 1974 | 2014”.
Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series
All events are free and open to the public and begin at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, unless otherwise noted. Each will be preceded by a reception at 6 p.m.
Steinberg Hall is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards, immediately adjacent to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
For more information, call 314-935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu/calendar/events/lectures
Fall 2014 speakers
Sept. 15
Michael Ray Charles
Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Painting
University of Houston
Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program Lecture
Sponsored by the Office of the Provost
Sept. 17
Dennis Crompton
Co-founder, Archigram
In conjunction with “Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association”
* Reception at Kemper Art Museum
Sept. 22
David Leatherbarrow
Professor of architecture and chairman
Graduate Group in Architecture
University of Pennsylvania
Abend Family Lecture
Sept. 26
Steve Dumez
Partner and director of design
Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, New Orleans
Co-sponsored by AIA St. Louis
* Noon in Kemp Auditorium, Givens Hall
Oct. 1
Jaume Plensa
Artist
Olin Business School Art on Campus Dedication
* Reception 5 p.m. Program 5:30 p.m.
* Emerson Auditorium, Knight Hall, Olin Business School
Oct. 6
Christopher Sperandio
Co-founder, Cargo Space
Assistant professor of painting and drawing
Rice University, Houston
Oct. 8
Susannah Drake
Founding principal, dlandstudio
Anova Lecture for Landscape Architecture
Oct. 15
Jan Tumlir
Wallace Herndon Smith Distinguished Professor of Art
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Wallace Herndon Smith Distinguished Professor of Art Lecture
Oct. 20
Henrik Drescher
Artist, illustrator and author
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture
Oct. 21
Carl Steinitz
Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning Emeritus
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Co-sponsored by Data & GIS Services, Washington University Libraries.
Oct. 27
Peter Eisenman
Founder and design principal
Peter Eisenman Architects
Co-sponsored by Student Union
* Reception at Kemper Art Museum
Nov. 7
Nasrine Seraji
Founding partner, Atelier Seraji
Coral Courts Lecture
Keynote address, “Women in Architecture: 1974 | 2014”
Co-sponsored by the Assembly Series
* Reception 5:30 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum
Nov. 24
James Elkins
E.C. Chadbourne Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Art and the Graduate Speaker Series in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences