Author: Liam Otten

This month, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present “Beauty and the Blonde: An Exploration of American Art and Popular Culture,” the first museum show to investigate the strategic use of the blonde in contemporary art. The show starts Nov. 16 and runs through Jan. 28, 2008.

Lynn Hershman LeesonPioneering performance artist Lynn Hershman Leeson and feminist scholar Maria Elena Buszek will join Catharina Manchanda, Ph.D., curator for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, for a panel discussion at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16. The event is held in conjunction with Beauty and the Blonde: An Exploration of American Art and Popular Culture, the first museum exhibition to investigate the strategic use of the blonde in contemporary art.

Al Parker, *Mother and Daughter Skiing*The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections will launch the new Modern Graphic History Library with a pair of exhibitions that open Friday, Nov. 16. “Highlights from the Modern Graphic History Library” will open with a reception at 5:30 p.m. in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room & Grand Staircase Lobby. A reception for “Ephemeral Beauty: Al Parker and the American Women’s Magazine, 1940-1960” will immediately follow at 7 p.m. in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Brock ClarkeNovelist Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007), will read from his work at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The book — Clarke’s fourth — tells the darkly comic story of Sam Pulsifer, a literary bumbler who, at the age of 18, accidentally burns down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Mass.

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a two-weekend run of “Measure for Measure,” one of Shakespeare’s most confounding “problem plays” that explores the nature of power, the relationships between men and women and the battle between justice and mercy. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 11 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre in the Mallinckrodt Student Center. Performances continue the following weekend at 8 p.m. Nov. 16 and 17, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 18.

Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The event, part of the Writing Program’s Fall Reading Series, is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Rm. 201, Hurst Lounge.

Jon SpaihtsGrooveLilyRock band? Musical theatre? Indie-pop trio GrooveLily combines the best of both worlds with Striking 12, a refreshingly alternative holiday show based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Little Match Girl.” The New York Times praises the show as “Thoroughly winning! More artfully crafted and engaging than virtually all the standard-mold musicals these days. Alive with wit and humor.”

Photo by Joe AngelesAcclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin led more than a dozen student, faculty and alumni pianists last Sunday as part of “Piano Extravaganza.” The concert, organized by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, marked the formal opening of the University’s newly renovated 560 Music Center in University City.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art MuseumRoy Lichtenstein,*Crying Girl,* 1963.The blonde has been an iconic and highly influential ideal of feminine beauty in American culture since the mid-20th century. Yet beginning with American Pop Art in the early 1960s, the blonde has also become a touchstone for artistic representation and critical inquiry. In November, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Beauty and the Blonde: An Exploration of American Art and Popular Culture, the first museum show to investigate the strategic use of the blonde in contemporary art. Organized by Catharina Manchanda, Ph.D., curator of the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition will survey how artists have interpreted the blonde in a wide range of visual media, from prints, painting and sculpture to collage, film, video, photography and interactive web projects. Also featured will be a selection of advertisements, magazines, cartoons, film posters, album covers, Barbie imagery and other materials — mainly from the 1950s and 60s — that have helped to shape popular notions about the blonde.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesRosie Mandel as IsabellaOne of Shakespeare’s most confounding “problem plays,” Measure for Measure explores the nature of power, the relationships between men and women and the battle between justice and mercy. In November the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present a two-weekend run of Measure for Measure in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.