Diane Victor, drawing with smoke

Acclaimed South African artist to launch Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series Feb. 5

Diane Victor artwork
Works by Diane Victor. Left: "Bad thoughts," 2017, smoke drawing on foam core. Right: "Thinking of you (Cultural memory)," 2017, smoke on paper. (Images courtesy of the artist and David Krut Projects)

The images twist and curl like heat rising through air.

Armed with candle and flame, South African artist Diane Victor creates delicate, ephemeral-seeming portraits of missing children, AIDS clinic patients and other vulnerable populations.

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 5, Victor will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series with a free talk about her work.

Victor, the Sam Fox School’s Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist, is known for prints and drawings that investigate the inequalities, anxieties and complexities of contemporary South African society. While in residence, she will work with printmaking students and faculty to create new work for Island Press, the school’s professional collaborative printshop.

Morphosis, the Bloomberg Center at Cornell Tech, on Roosevelt Island in New York City. (Photo: Matt Carbone)

The Public Lecture Series will continue Feb. 26 with the annual Fumihiko Maki Lecture, presented by Pierre Bélanger, associate professor of landscape architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

Other lectures will include Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, founder and design director of Morphosis (March 23); Elena Manferdini, principal of Atelier Manferdini (April 4); artist Jennifer Bornstein (April 20); and designer Keetra Dean Dixon (April 23). In all, the series will feature 11 presentations by nationally and internationally known artists, architects, curators and designers.

All talks 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 Givens Hall and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Visit here for parking details. For more information, call 314-935-9300 or visit www.samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Spring 2018 speakers

Feb. 5
Diane Victor
Artist
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture

Feb. 26
Pierre Bélanger
Associate professor of landscape architecture, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design
Fumihiko Maki Lecture

Feb. 28
Emmy Thelander
Artist
Wallace Herndon Smith Distinguished Visiting Assistant Professor Lecture

Morehshin Allahyari, “Material Speculation: ISIS, Gorgon,” 2015. 3-D-printed sculpture and electronic components. (Image courtesy of artist)

March 5
Victoria Vesna

Artist; Professor, UCLA Department of Design and Media Arts; Director, Art|Sci Center, UCLA School of the Arts and California NanoSystems Institute
Graduate Art Open House Lecture
* Reception at 5 p.m., lecture at 5:30 p.m.

March 23
Thom Mayne
Founder and design director, Morphosis
Ruth Kahn Lynford Lecture
Graduate Architecture Open House Lecture

April 4
Elena Manferdini
Principal and owner, Atelier Manferdini
Coral Courts Lecture

Atelier Manferdini, 1. Zev Yaroslavsky Family Support Center Civic Artwork, Los Angeles

April 11
Eric Mumford
Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture
In conjunction with “Transformative Visions: Washington University’s East End, Then and Now”
* Reception at 6 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum

April 16
Pae White

Artist

April 20
Jennifer Bornstein
Artist
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow Lecture
Time TBD,  at the Saint Louis Art Museum

April 23
Keetra Dean Dixon
Designer and assistant professor, Rhode Island School of Design
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture

April 25
Michael Rakowitz
Artist
Anova Lecture for Landscape Architecture
Co-sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics