Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

At the Kemper Art Museum through Dec. 5, it will showcase nearly 50 pieces by 38 artists, both current faculty and emeriti.

Kevin LowderA bike rack designed by senior James Lewis was inspired by the movements of Soulard Market patrons.

The Sam Fox Arts Center at Washington University in St. Louis will present its first annual Festival of the Arts from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1. The event, which will feature a variety of student-led arts activities, is free and open to the public and takes place on the grounds of Bixby, Givens and Steinberg halls, located adjacent to one another near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Food and beverages will be available. For more information, call (314) 935-9347.

Russ RosenerRuss Rosener, “Lost in Skool” The Washington University School of Art Faculty Show will open in the University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30. The all-media exhibition will showcase close to 50 pieces — ranging from video and installation to prints, drawings, painting, sculpture, graphic design and fashion design — by 38 artists, including both current and emeriti faculty.

Michael Bierut, principal designer for Pentagram Design in New York, will launch the Washington University School of Architecture’s fall Monday Night Lecture Series Sept. 13 with a Sam Fox Arts Center Lecture on Graphic Design, Big and Small.

The principal designer for Pentagram Design in New York, he’ll present a Sam Fox Arts Center Lecture Sept. 13 on “Graphic Design, Big and Small.”

Original cover art, “Love and Rockets” #15There is no shortcut from popular art to cultural respectability, but few have wandered longer than comic book, which has only recently begun to receive its critical and scholarly due. In October, the School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis will present The Rubber Frame: Culture and Comics, a book and a pair of complementary exhibitions that together trace the evolution of comics from early precursors in 18th and 19th century England and Switzerland to turn-of-the-last-century newspapers, the raucous undergrounds of the 1960s and ’70s and the literary alternative comics of today.

A portion of Parking Lot No. 2 — at the southeast corner of the Hilltop Campus — will be closed through August 2006.

A $500,000 gift from Emily Rauh Pulitzer and the $125,000 Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award will bolster the Sam Fox Arts Center.

Manfred Pernice, “Untitled (Bicycle Rack),” 2002.The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis is recipient of a $125,000 Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. The award will support Reality Bites: Making Avant-Garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, the inaugural loan exhibition in the museum’s new facilities, scheduled to open in Fall 2006.