Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

The world is always falling apart. And artists have long been interested in the melancholy symbolism of ruin and decay. But in recent years, such themes have acquired particular urgency as global environmental issues increasingly become matters of both scientific and public concern.

Alfredo Jaar is one of Latin America’s foremost contemporary artists, known for installations and public interventions that investigate war, corruption, social justice, media desensitization and the global balance of power. On Monday, Feb. 10, Jaar will deliver the inaugural Bunny and Charles Burson Visiting Lecture for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Seven current and former Washington University in St. Louis students, collectively known as “The Force,” took home the top prize of $50,000 during the GlobalHack event held Jan. 31-Feb. 2 at Union Station in St. Louis.

The Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series turned 60 in 2013, and to mark such an august occasion, it’s fitting to remember why the lecture series was conceived in the first place. The Assembly Series launched during the institution’s centennial celebration in 1953 as a way to involve the broader St. Louis community in the robust intellectual life on campus.

This spring, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based architecture and design firm Freecell will create a temporary performance space on a vacant lot in St. Louis’ Grand Center neighborhood. On Jan. 27, founding partners Lauren Crahan and John Hartmann will launch the Sam Fox School’s spring Public Lecture Series with a discussion of their work.

Virginia Terpening was an accomplished painter and an important regional artist. Yet by the time of her death, in 2007, Terpening’s work had been largely forgotten; hundreds of paintings languished in a rusty trailer in northeastern Missouri. Yet now a reappraisal is underway, thanks in large part to The Hinge, a nonprofit gallery cofounded by Eileen G’Sell, lecturer in The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

The history of the 20th century and the beginnings of the 21st have been scarred by incomprehensible violence and far-reaching political events. This spring, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will explore both the direct experience and lingering effects of historic upheavals with “In the Aftermath of Trauma: Contemporary Video Installations.”

As an artist, the Sam Fox School’s Patricia Olynyk frequently investigates the intersections of art and science. Now Olynyk is helping to lead a national task force on the topic while also planning a vertical seminar about “The Role of Arts Practice in the Research University.”

Washington University in St. Louis Emeritus Trustee Harvey Saligman died Friday, Nov. 15, 2013. He was 75. He established the Harvey and Linda Saligman Multiple Myeloma Research Fund to find new treatments for the deadly blood cancer.

In 1974, Walt Reed opened the Illustration House. For decades, the New York gallery was the nation’s premier advocate for illustration art. Now, Washington University Special Collections has worked with Reed and his son, Roger, to acquire the Illustration House archives, along with a substantial number of original artworks.