Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

The newly expanded and renovated Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will reopen with a major exhibition of work by Ai Weiwei. The renowned Chinese dissident artist and activist is known all over the world for rigorous, compassionate and complex artworks that address themes of political, ethical and social urgency. “Ai Weiwei: Bare Life” opens Sept. 28 and will feature more than 35 artworks created over the last two decades in a wide variety of media — including a handful of newly conceived, large-scale and site-specific projects and major pieces never before exhibited in the United States.

University Libraries announced the winners of its annual Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition. The competition encourages students to read for enjoyment and to develop personal libraries throughout their lives.

“Ash is Cold,” a solo exhibition featuring new work by Tim Portlock, associate professor of art at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is on view through May 3 at Monaco, the artist-owned cooperative gallery.

This week’s fire at Notre Dame in Paris, which destroyed the Cathedral’s iconic spire and much of the roof, gripped the world and led to outpourings of support. But the damage could have been far worse, said architectural historian Eric Mumford.

Cities are both a leading cause and victim of global climate change, but they also hold great promise. In the first installment of Class Acts, a series celebrating the Class of 2019, seniors Marissa Lerner and Alexis Vidaurreta share their optimism and respective visions for cities that protect people and resources.

Arthur Osver won international acclaim for his evocative depictions of the American city. And though his work evolved, that ramshackle topography remained part of his painterly DNA. So argues art history Professor Angela Miller in “Arthur Osver: Urban Landscape, Abstraction, and the Mystique of Place” (2019).

From the beginning of his tenure, Mark Wrighton set out to put Washington University and its students and faculty on the map.

Ryan Lawson, BFA ’04, is an interior designer who as a student switched from studying architecture to art. He says that Chancellor Wrighton took a keen interest in his choice because Lawson was a student during the early planning phases of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Los Angeles sculptor Elana Mann and Chicago public artist Erik L. Peterson have won the 2019 Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Awards, presented by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Each winner will receive $25,000 to advance their studio practice.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual arts will present its 90th Annual Fashion Design Show April 14 in Anheuser-Busch Hall. The event will feature dozens of models wearing scores of outfits created by sophomore, junior and senior fashion majors.