Sam Fox School spring Public Lecture Series begins

Events begin Jan. 27 with PXSTL winners Freecell

Won Ju Lim, Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow, will discuss her work April 10. The talk comes in conjunction with “Raycraft is Dead,” Lim’s new exhibition for the Saint Louis Art Museum. Pictured is a detail from “24 Seconds of Silence” (2008). Photo by Sun Jianwei, courtesy of Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland.

It’s an ambitious plan.

This spring, the 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. The group received the $50,000 commission last fall, after winning PXSTL, a national competition sponsored by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts.

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, founding partners Lauren Crahan and John Hartmann will discuss their work and the PXSTL project as part of the Sam Fox School’s spring Public Lecture Series.

In all, the series will feature 11 talks by nationally and internationally known artists, architects, curators and designers.

Events will continue Feb. 10 with the inaugural Bunny and Charles Burson Visiting Lecture by artist Alfredo Jaar. His video installation “May 1, 2011” is featured as part of “In the Aftermath of Trauma,” on view this spring at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Other highlights will include Japanese architects Junya Ishigami (Feb. 17) and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (March 28) — both featured in the Kemper Art Museum’s “On the Threshholds of Space-Making” — and Lisa Sanditz, the Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist (March 5).

Concluding the series April 10 will be Won Ju Lim, the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow, whose exhibition “Raycraft is Dead” will open that evening at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Lauren Crahan and John Hartmann of Freecell, winner of the $50,000 PXSTL competition, will discuss their work Jan. 27. Image courtesy of Freecell.

Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series

All talks are free and open to the public and, unless otherwise noted, begin at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. Each will be preceded by a reception at 6 p.m.

Steinberg Hall is located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards, immediately adjacent to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

For more information, call 314-935-9300 or visit the lecture calendar for the complete lineup.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. Kitamota Station West Square, Kitamoto, Japan. © Atelier Bow-Wow.