Arts & Culture

In 1973, while a doctoral student at Indiana University, Henry I. Schvey befriended the eminent Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). Now chair of Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, Schvey has written “Kokoschka: A Love Story,” an original drama about the artist’s torrid affair with Alma Mahler (1879-1964), the beautiful widow of composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

A group of three students is among the five final teams competing in the Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge. The winning team will be announced Feb. 2, with their ad airing during the big game Feb. 4.

KWUR (90.3 FM), Washington University’s student-run radio station, will launch KWUR WEEK, a series of on-campus events, with a free concert by four of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s newest—and youngest—players. The program will include string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms.

The great novelist, Nurrudin Farah, will be on the Washington University campus Feb. 13 and 14 to speak on “Political Islam and Clan in Present-day Somalia” for the Assembly Series, and to present a reading/discussion of his works for the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. Both events are free and open to the public.

Diana MichenerDeborah EisenbergAcclaimed fiction writer Deborah Eisenberg, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature, will read from her work Feb. 8 and host a Q&A session Feb. 15. Eisenberg is the author of five short story collections, most recently Twilight of the Super Heroes: Stories (2006).

Rudolf HerzRudolf Herz, *Dachau, Museumsbilder, 1976/80 (Museum Photographs, Dachau, 1976/80)*The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a roundtable discussion with three prominent German artists — Rudolf Herz, Christian Jankowski and Via Lewandowsky — at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9. All three artists are featured in the new exhibition, Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, which opens later that evening. Also taking part will be three contemporary scholars and critics: Diedrich Diederichsen, Sabine Eckmann and Lutz Koepnick.

Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis, Hillary Petrie and Tyler Survant”Interface”Three teams from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual arts took top honors in the St. Louis Gateway Mall Follies Ideas Competition. Sponsored by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the competition sought to generate innovative and unexpected ideas for the Gateway Mall downtown. Projects would serve as “visual anchors” for the area while helping to guide public movement along the Mall to the Gateway Arch.

Courtesy photoDaniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)Cutting-edge composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and the string quartet section (SQ Unit) of his band, DBR & THE MISSION, will celebrate Black History Month with a rare performance of DBR’s A Civil Rights Reader at Washington University’s Edison Theatre Jan. 26.

Cristina Greavu and Peter Elsbeck, both graduate students in architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, have earned an honorable mention as part of an international urban design competition sponsored by the High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh.

It’s been said that medicine keeps people alive, but art makes life worth living. Through Feb. 26, more than 50 people are exhibiting their paintings, photographs, sculptures, ceramics and mixed media in the first floor atrium of the School of Medicine’s Farrell Learning and Teaching Center. The pieces are part of the third annual Student, Faculty and Staff Art Show, sponsored by the Washington University School of Medicine Arts Commission.