Author: Liam Otten

The Sukkah is an ancient yet ephemeral form of architecture. In Jewish tradition, these small temporary structures — places to share meals, entertain, sleep and rejoice — are erected each autumn during the weeklong holiday of Sukkot. In October, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, in partnership with St. Louis Hillel at Washington University and The Museum of ImaJewnation, will host Sukkah City STL, a design competition and exhibition that reimagines the Sukkah through the lens of contemporary art and architecture.

With utopian ambition and scientific precision, Tomás Saraceno redefines both the built environment and the role of the artist. His spectacular, gravity-defying installations and visionary sculptural models — inspired by clouds, bubbles, spider webs and other natural structures — explore connections between complex social and ecological systems while raising pointed questions about our own relationships to an increasingly fragile natural world. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific, an exhibition highlighting the breadth of Saraceno’s cross-disciplinary practice.

The world today feels increasingly globalized and interconnected, yet also increasingly precarious, as old certainties — historical, ideological and material — give way to ever-present threats of climate change, economic collapse and terrorism. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art from Germany, one of four major exhibitions slated for the 2011-12 academic year. Also opening in the fall will be Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific, followed in the spring by John Stezaker, the first major solo museum exhibition of works by this contemporary British artist, and Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time.

From the land down under to the top of the world to the dusty streets of Soweto, the Edison Ovations Series presents groundbreaking performances by critically acclaimed artists from around the globe. For its 2011-12 season, Edison will visit modern India (by way of New Zealand) with Guru of Chai, revisit The Sound of Music with Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata and welcome back South Africa’s inspirational Soweto Gospel Choir.  

Artists background for 2011-12 Edison Ovations Series.

Praised as “a sly satire of celebrity, consumerism, and the art world” by the Los Angeles Times, the Oscar-nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop has been one of the year’s most talked-about films, capturing the notoriously elusive Bansky and other prominent street artists at work and in their own words. At 8:30 p.m. Monday, July 18, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host an outdoor screening of Exit Through the Gift Shop in the museum’s east parking lot. 

Hungarian installation artist Balázs Kicsiny is the 2011-12 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Based in Budapest, Kicsiny is among Hungary’s most highly regarded contemporary artists, known for large-scale sculptural installations, or “frozen performances,” that draw equally on the languages of theater, philosophy and the visual arts. 

Missouri in July is hot, hot, hot, but not as hot as Ritmo Caliente, one of St. Louis’ premier Latin jazz-fusion bands. On July 7, Ritmo Caliente will launch Washington University’s annual Jazz in July series with a free performance. Sponsored as part of the larger Jazz at Holmes series, Jazz in July will feature four local ensembles performing Thursday evenings throughout the month in the cool, coffeehouse-style setting of Holmes Lounge. 

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has appointed new directors for its two largest ensembles. Ward Stare, resident conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, will assume thel role of conductor for the 75-member Washington University Symphony Orchestra. Nicole Aldrich, who recently earned a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Maryland, will become the department’s director of choral activities, conducting the 65-member Washington University Concert Choir. 

The Gateway Festival Orchestra will launch its 48th season of free Sunday-evening concerts July 10 with Various Variations, a program exploring the use of variations by a handful of composers from the Baroque period through the 20th century. Subsequent performances will take place July 17, 24 and 31.