Monika Weiss: ‘A natural cathedral’

Monika Weiss: ‘A natural cathedral’

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.
Beyond visual data

Beyond visual data

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.
Kemper Art Museum announces 2025 exhibitions

Kemper Art Museum announces 2025 exhibitions

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.
Design Agendas

Design Agendas

Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s

An examination of the complex connections in St. Louis among modern architecture, urban renewal, and racial and spatial change.
The Neronian Grotesque

The Neronian Grotesque

Image, Text, and Culture in Classical Antiquity

During the reign of Nero, Roman culture produced some of its most spectacular works of art and literature, and some of its strangest. This study explores these effects across textual and visual media in an integrated way. Weiss’ analysis allows for appreciation of the shared strategies of composition, overlaps between literary and visual rhetoric, the […]
Thinking through Graphic Design History

Thinking through Graphic Design History

Challenging the canon

Graphic design has a paradoxical relationship to history. While it claims to promote originality and innovation – ideas that emphasize the new and unique – design practice is deeply embedded in previous ideals. Too often, design students encounter the past in brief visual impressions which seduce them to imitate form rather than engage with historical contexts.
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