Artist Rick Lowe, founder of Project Row Houses in Houston, will speak about his work at 6:30 p.m. April 13 in Room 458 of Louderman Hall as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Architecture Lecture Series.
The talk, titled “Toward Social Sculpture,” is free and open to the public. The Architecture Lecture Series is sponsored by the College of Architecture and the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design.
Established in 1993, Project Row Houses is an arts and cultural community located in a historically significant inner-city neighborhood in Houston’s Third Ward. Encompassing 22 now-renovated shotgun houses, the project is inspired by the work of African-American artist John Biggers — whose paintings celebrated the shotgun house — and combines aspects of neighborhood revitalization, low-income housing, education, historic preservation and community service. Ten of the houses are dedicated to art, photography and literary projects, which are installed on a rotating six-month basis.
In addition to Project Row Houses, Lowe has worked as a guest artist on a range of community projects, including the Rem Koolhaus-designed Seattle Public Library; the Borough Project for the Spoleto Festival 2003 in Charleston, S.C.; and the Delray Beach Cultural Loop in Florida.
His art has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Kwangju Biennale in Korea; the Kumamoto State Museum in Japan; and Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and Museum of Fine Arts.
Lowe’s many honors include the 2000 American Institute of Architects’ Keystone Award and the 2002 Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities. From 2001-02, he served as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and received the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Governors Award in 2005. In 2006, Lowe received the Brandywine Lifetime Achievement Award, presented annually to a distinguished African-American artist, educator or civic leader.
For more information, call 935-9300 or visit www.arch.wustl.edu.