Fall public lecture series

Artist Adam Pendleton, designer Kelli Anderson and Whitney curator Adrienne Edwards are among an international array of creative professionals who will discuss their work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis’ fall public lecture series.

Uniting WashU’s academic units in art, architecture and design with its nationally renowned Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, the Sam Fox School brings an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary issues and challenges, from sustainable design and digital technologies to the importance of strengthening local communities.

The fall public lecture series will highlight themes relating to climate, urbanism and cultural politics. Talks begin September 22, when the Kemper Art Museum hosts a conversation between Pendleton, one of the most celebrated visual artists of his generation, and curator Meredith Malone. An opening reception for “Adam Pendleton: To Divide By” will immediately follow.

New York-based artist Marie Lorenz will discuss her work September 28. Basing her practice on the exploration and documentation of urban waterways, Lorenz combines psycho-geographic investigations with highly crafted material forms to heighten the awareness of place.

Multidisciplinary artist, writer and experimental filmmaker Crystal Z Campbell, the Sam Fox School’s 2023–24 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow, will speak October 4. Artist William Villalongo and data scientist Shraddha Ramani will discuss their collaborative portfolio Printing Black America: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits in the 21st Century October 24. The lecture will kick off a weeklong residency at the Sam Fox School’s Island Press.

Edwards, the Engell Speyer Family Curator and director of curatorial affairs at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, will speak November 2.  With David Breslin, Edwards is curator of the 2022 Whitney Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept, which included Pendleton’s film portrait Ruby Nell Sales. On November 8, dancer and choreographer Kyle Abraham, also subject of a Pendleton film portrait, will be in conversation with performance theorist Joshua Chambers-Letson.

Concluding the series, on December 7, will be artist, designer and animator Kelli Anderson. Known for reinventing commonplace objects in ways that disrupt audience expectations, Anderson is the creator of—among other projects—This Book is a Camera (2015), a pop-up book that transforms into a working camera, and This Book is a Planetarium (2017), which explores how paper taps into larger phenomena of light, time, sound and mathematics.

All events are free and open to the public and begin at 5:30pm Central time in the Sam Fox School’s Steinberg Hall unless otherwise noted. For more information, call T 314 935 9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Fall 2023 speakers

September 22: Adam Pendleton, artist.
Presented by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

September 28: Marie Lorenz, artist.
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture

October 4: Crystal Z Campbell, artist, writer, filmmaker. 
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow Lecture

October 16: Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, co-founders, Weiss/Manfredi. 
Abend Family Visiting Critic Endowed Lecture

October 19: Javier García-Germán, founder, TAAs (totem arquitectos asociados). 
Ruth & Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture Lecture

October 24: Artist William Villalongo and data scientist Shraddha Ramani.
Arthur and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist Lecture

November 2: Adrienne Edwards, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art. 
Co-sponsored by the Kemper Art Museum; WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2); and the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences

November 8, 6pm: Dancer Kyle Abraham and performance theorist Joshua Chambers-Letson, COCA, 6880 Washington Ave.
Co-sponsored by COCA, the Center of Creative Arts; the Kemper Art Museum; CRE2; and the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences. *Space is limited. To register, click here.

December 7: Kelli Anderson, artist, designer and animator. 
Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture