Arts & Culture

Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, will conclude his deanship effective June 30, 2026. Colangelo will continue to serve as WashU’s E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts. He will return to teaching, after a yearlong sabbatical, in fall 2027.

Student group Silly Squared takes the lighthearted creativity of stickers and turns them into a meaningful platform for WashU students to share their artwork. Every week, the group prints thousands of stickers and hands them out to students for free.

Illustrator Carson Ellis, sculptor Beatriz Cortez and architect Rahul Mehrotra are among the internationally renowned creative professionals who will discuss their work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts spring Public Lecture Series.

In February, the Kemper Art Museum will present “Seeds: Containers of a World to Come.” The exhibition features recent works and new commissions by 10 nationally and internationally known artists for whom the seed is the kernel, both literally and metaphorically, for their investigations.

Monika Weiss, a professor of art at WashU’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, was trained in piano but then branched into visual art and beyond. Her works encompass many formats and senses. She recently installed “Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture),” at St. Louis’ Laumeier Sculpture Park.

Can we ever see too much data? Yes, actually. In some situations, visual overload can paralyze decision-making. But over the last year, the interdisciplinary SAIL lab, with help from WashU Rowing, has explored nonvisual means for transmitting real-time performance feedback.

Uncertain times can challenge things we take for granted but also can create productive instabilities, opening the door to new ideas and new visions of the future. In this spirit, the Kemper Art Museum’s 2025 exhibition lineup will question canonical narratives, interrogate colonial imaginaries and reexamine complex historical entanglements.

This fall, WashU will launch The Engaged City. Building on the long-running Divided City initiative, and funded in part by a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, The Engaged City aims to highlight St. Louis’ cultural resources.

The “Design Agendas” public symposium, presented by WashU’s Kemper Art Museum and Sam Fox School, will explore the past, present and future of St. Louis urban design Oct. 25 and 26.