Artist Michael Joo, architect Lola Sheppard and designer Rob Giampietro are among the international array of cutting-edge visual thinkers who will visit St. Louis as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series at Washington University in St. Louis. In all, the series will feature 16 presentations by renowned artists, architects, curators and designers.
Events will begin Feb. 3 with Joo, a 1989 alumnus of Washington University. Now based in New York, Joo’s work combines and contrasts materials from nature and culture to ask fundamental questions about identity and the human condition.
Joo’s work has been featured at The Menil Collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Freer|Sackler galleries of the Smithsonian Institution, among many others. With Do Ho Suh, Joo represented Korea at the 2001 Venice Biennale.
Sheppard, a founding partner of the award-winning Lateral Office in Toronto, will discuss her work Feb. 27. Operating at the intersection of architecture, landscape and urbanism, Sheppard’s practice explores the built environment’s social, ecological and political contexts, with a particular focus on the role of architecture in rural and remote regions.
Giampietro, director of design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, will speak March 2. At MoMA, Giampietro leads a team of more than 20 designers and producers on projects across all media. He previously served as creative lead for Google in New York and is a senior critic at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Other lectures will include landscape architect Tom Leader (March 5), former Gagosian Gallery director Valentina Castellani (March 18), British architect and critic Kenneth Frampton (March 19), Spanish architect Fuensanta Nieto (April 2) and artist Dan Graham (April 7). See below for the complete list.
The Public Lecture Series is free and open to the public. All talks begin at 6 p.m. in Washington University’s Steinberg Hall Auditorium and will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted.
Steinberg Hall is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards, immediately adjacent to Givens Hall and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. For more information, call 314-935-9300 or visit www.samfoxschool.wustl.edu.
Spring 2020 speakers
Feb. 3
Michael Joo
Artist
Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture
Feb. 20
Pablo Helguera
Multimedia artist
Henry L. and Natalie Freund Visiting Artist Lecture
Feb. 24
Reinhard Bek
Conservator, Bek & Frohnert LLC
Lecture at 6 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum
Feb. 27
Lola Sheppard
Founding partner, Lateral Office; professor, University of Waterloo School of Architecture
Fumihiko Maki Lecture
March 2
Rob Giampietro
Director of design, Museum of Modern Art, New York; senior critic, Rhode Island School of Design
Henry L. and Natalie Freund Visiting Artist Lecture
March 5
Tom Leader
Founder and principal, TLS Landscape Architecture
Anova Lecture for Landscape Architecture
March 18
Valentina Castellani
Former director, Gagosian Gallery
Women and the Kemper Public Lecture, co-sponsored by Olin Business School
*No reception before lecture
March 19
Kenneth Frampton
Ware Professor of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University
Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture
March 23
Natilee Harren
Assistant professor of contemporary art history and critical studies, University of Houston
Lecture at 6 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum
March 30
José Zabala
Principal, Addenda Architects
Ruth & Norman Moore Visiting Professor Lecture
April 1
Alexander Alberro
Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Barnard College
Lecture at 6 p.m. in the Kemper Art Museum
April 2
Fuensanta Nieto
Founding partner, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos
Coral Courts Lecture
April 7
Dan Graham
Artist
Art on Campus Lecture
*No reception before lecture
April 13
Charles A. Birnbaum
Founder, The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Inaugural Esley Hamilton Lecture
April 16
Thomas Phifer
Founding director, Thomas Phifer and Partners
CannonDesign Lecture Excellence in Architecture and Engineering
April 20
Wiel Arets
Founding director, Wiel Arets Architects; professor of architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
Harris Armstrong Fund Lecture
