Author: Liam Otten

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will launch its spring Public Lecture Series with talks by architect Javier Maroto (Jan. 26) and artist Carrie Mae Weems (Feb. 2). Weems is a 2013 recipient of the MacArthur “genius award.” Her “Untitled (Colored People Grid)” recently was acquired by the university’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Jazz bassist and composer Eric Warren will launch the spring Jazz at Holmes series with a free concert Thursday, Jan. 22. In all, the weekly series will feature 12 performances, including evenings with acclaimed guitarist John Abercrombie and saxophonist Eric Person, a St. Louis native now living in New York.

This spring, students in Ignacio Infante’s “World-Wide Translation: Language, Culture, Technology” will help create positive experiences for critically ill children visiting St. Louis. The work is made possible in part  by an Arts & Sciences grant, one of 15, designed to support engaging and transformative classroom experiences.

For Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, drawing is both an expressive art and a daily practice. At the office or in the studio, a sketchbook is always near at hand.

The Karb Family Quartet — which consists of senior Jonathan Karb, his parents Margaret and Benjamin and younger brother Aaron — will launch the spring Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series Jan. 20 in Goldberg Formal Lounge.

During the 1950s and ’60s, international abstraction played a crucial role in Cold War cultural politics. In St. Louis, Washington University emerged as one of the nation’s most important regional centers for postwar abstract art — in large part thanks to the efforts of curator William N. Eisendrath Jr. This spring, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will pay homage with “From Picasso to Fontana: Collecting Modern and Postwar Art in the Eisendrath Years, 1960-68.” 

Listening is a talent but also a skill. This spring, Andrew Raimist and Bob Hansman, both architecture faculty in Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will lead “Community Building II: Ferguson,” a community studies class that explores the complex economic, political and racial landscape of north St. Louis.

Jeigh Singleton, associate professor emeritus of fashion design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, died Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015, following a long battle with cancer. He was 70.

Does the recent decision by President Barack Obama to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba truly represent fresh opportunity? Or is it merely the latest chapter in a long, tortuous narrative of manipulation and misunderstanding? At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, Cuban novelist Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo will discuss “U.S.-Cuba: A New Era or a New Ire?” in the Danforth University Center.

​A dance may begin with a thought or gesture but making art requires more than mere inspiration. On Jan. 23 and 24, Doug Varone and Dancers, one of today’s most celebrated companies, will visit Edison Theatre on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis for an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the creative process.