Arts & Culture

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computers, has issued a challenge to the music industry, saying Apple would support an open online music marketplace if the four-largest music companies would drop the use of digital-rights management software — the technology that prevents the copying of music sold online. Jobs’ challenge, which some consider shocking, is just the latest brick to fall in the inevitable collapse of a legal wall that since 1999 has been obstructing technological progress and preventing people from enjoying more and better music at a lower price, suggests Michele Boldrin, Ph.D., an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the hidden costs of intellectual property rights protections.

303 Gallery, New YorkCollier Schorr, *Lina, Opening Braid, Bettringen*Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Germany has re-emerged as a potent intellectual and creative center within the international art world. This month, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis opens Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, the first thematic museum exhibition to examine how contemporary artists have dealt — both directly and indirectly — with the social, economic and political ramifications of German unification.

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.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesNoga Landau as AgnesConservative versus liberal, political versus personal, father versus daughter. Such are the forces at play in civil disobedience, a world premiere drama by Carter Lewis, playwright-in-residence in Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. Commissioned by the PAD, the play centers on the relationship between Fred, a conservative justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and his daughter Marlee, a social activist and Manhattan bookstore owner.

The installation, on view Feb. 9-April 29, is the first thematic museum exhibition to examine how contemporary artists have dealt with the ramifications of German unification.

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 acclaimed fiction writer is the author of five short story collections, most recently “Twilight of the Super Heroes: Stories” (2006).

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.