Author: Liam Otten

Celebrated artist Roger Shimomura, whose paintings and performances wittily explore issues of culture, discrimination and ethnic stereotypes, will discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12.

Photo by Mary ButkusA dialogue between alumni Michael Adams (left) and Gyo Obata drew a standing room-only crowd to Steinberg Hall Oct. 2. Their talk, titled “Remembering the Internment,” focused on the friendship between their famous fathers, the photographer Ansel Adams and the painter Chiura Obata, pictured above in the black and white photograph.

Marcel Duchamp was among the most influential artists of the 20th century. He was also a dedicated chess player who saw strong correlations between his art and the game. On Oct. 14 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis will present “Playing with Chance: Duchamp, Chess and Roulette,” a gallery talk and exhibition match combining the ultimate game of strategy with the ultimate game of chance.

Pianist Martin Kennedy, assistant professor of composition and theory in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a free faculty recital at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. The program will include five original works by Kennedy, performed by Kennedy and guest musicians from Washington University, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Maryville University and the University of Missouri—St. Louis.

Poet Claudia Rankine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in Arts & Science, will lead a talk on the craft of poetry at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20. In addition, she will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29. Rankine is the author of four poetry collections, including Nothing in Nature is Private (1995), The End of the Alphabet (1998), PLOT (2001) and the experimental Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), which combines poetry, essays, images and travelogue. Her most recent project is a play, The Provenance of Beauty, A South Bronx Travelogue, for the Foundry Theatre in New York

Pianist Martin Kennedy, assistant professor of composition and theory in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a free faculty recital at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. The program will include five original works by Kennedy, performed by Kennedy and guest musicians from Washington University, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Maryville University and the University of Missouri—St. Louis.

Marcel Duchamp was among the most influential artists of the 20th century. He was also a dedicated chess player who saw strong correlations between his art and the game. On Oct. 14 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis will present “Playing with Chance: Duchamp, Chess and Roulette,” a gallery talk and exhibition match combining the ultimate game of strategy with the ultimate game of chance.

Chiura Obata, *Silent Moonlight at Tanforan Relocation Center,* 1942.In the 1930s photographer Ansel Adams struck up a friendship with California painter Chiura Obata. Yet the arrival of World War II would set these two celebrated artists on radically divergent paths — paths that would, in very different ways, lead both to the now-infamous “war relocation centers” at which the U.S. government forcibly interred approximately 120,000 Japanese-Americans. On Oct. 2 their sons, Michael Adams and Gyo Obata, will explore the impact of internment on their respective families in a public dialog at Washington University in St. Louis.

*Night Watch #3* (2007) by Roger ShimomuraCelebrated artist Roger Shimomura, whose paintings and performances wittily explore issues of culture, discrimination and ethnic stereotypes, will discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12. Shimomura’s lecture is held in conjunction with the semester-long series “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy,” organized by the Center for the Study of Ethics & Human Values.

Photo by Whitney CurtisVisiting dramaturg Liz Engelman (left) and sophomore Film & Media Studies in Arts & Sciences major Max Rissman discuss Rissman’s one-act play “Razor Love” Sept. 25 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.