The art of learning: WVU School of Art and Design announces fall 2026 exhibits and lectures
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The WVU School of Art and Design hosts a variety of art exhibitions and featured artist lectures each year. The fall 2026 lineup includes a nearly monthlong exhibition of artwork from faculty in a variety of mediums, two lectures related to the Art Museum of WVU exhibition "Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist," a public art display on the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center grounds, and guest artist lectures on performance/installation art and interior design and architecture.
Each year, the School of Art and Design brings guest artists, designers, art historians, educators and related professionals to campus. Most Art and Design students attend, and the events are free and open to the public. Students have the opportunity to engage with guest lecturers one-on-one in related classes or individual critiques and make professional contacts that may help them as they consider their next step.
"This is an opportunity for them to hear firsthand about the work and life stories of those who have forged successful careers in art and design fields," said Kristina Olson, director of the School of Art and Design.
"This semester, we are particularly pleased to welcome artist Ginger Brooks Takahashi, who was selected to make a special installation at the current Carnegie International exhibit in Pittsburgh," Olson continued. "Later in the semester, we will host Virginia San Fratello, who works at the intersection of interior design, sculpture and emerging technologies to investigate pressing questions about the social and ecological conditions that shape our built environments."
The fall 2026 events include:
"Earth is a Snowball: Recent Work by School of Art and Design Faculty" Exhibition
This exhibition presents recent work by the Art and Design faculty under the curatorial theme of "Earth is a Snowball."
The exhibition opens with a reception at 5 p.m. on Sept. 10 in the Douglas O. Blaney Lobby at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
"Earth is a Snowball" will be on display in the Laura and Paul Mesaros Galleries from Sept. 10 through Nov. 4.
Lecture: Ginger Brooks Takahashi (performance/installation art)
Ginger Brooks Takahashi is a transdisciplinary artist and educator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her performance, installation, and site responsive works examine our relationships to the mediums that connect us. These public projects are platforms for intimate interaction, an extension of feminist and queer praxis. Her work is included in the current "Carnegie International" exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
She will give a lecture at 5 p.m. on Sept. 16 in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
Lecture: "'It will be my own or nothing': Reclaiming the Legacy of Blanche Lazzell" by Kristina Olson
Kristina Olson is an arts writer and director of the WVU School of Art and Design. She was co-editor of the monograph on West Virginia-born modern artist Blanche Lazzell and will discuss the career of the artist and collective work to revive her important reputation as a pioneer of abstraction in American art.
Olson will deliver her lecture at 5 p.m. on Sept. 24 at the Art Museum of WVU Museum Education Center.
Deem Distinguished Lecture: Virginia San Fratello (interior design/architecture)
Virginia San Fratello is an artist, designer and educator whose interdisciplinary practice examines the relationships between material systems, emerging technologies and the social and ecological conditions that shape the built environment. Working across sculpture, installation, architecture and digital fabrication, her work investigates how objects and spaces carry coded and cultural narratives and how design can engage questions of memory, labor and environmental transformation.
The Deem Distinguished Lecture series, which began in 1995, is funded by Patrick and Alison Deem. The program has brought internationally recognized contemporary artists and their work to Morgantown. As part of the series, the visiting artists give a lecture that is open to WVU students and faculty, as well as the public, and their art is on exhibition in the Mesaros Galleries at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
Fratello will deliver her lecture at 5 p.m. on Oct. 1 in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
Sculpture Tour Invitational (public art)
The Sculpture Tour Invitational is an ongoing series of public artworks displayed on the WVU Evansdale Campus and Canady Creative Arts Center grounds. This event will commence with a public reception and walking tour, providing opportunities to hear exhibiting artists speak directly about their pieces.
The reception begins at noon on Oct. 28 on the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center grounds.
J. Bernard Schultz Endowed Lecture in Art History: Brunhilde Biebuyck
Dr. Brunhilde Biebuyck is the Reid Hall and Paris Global Center Director at Columbia University in New York City. The eldest of seven children, Biebuyck was raised in an international environment, living in the Republic of the Congo, several regions in the United States and France. Her experiences across continents have shaped a lifelong commitment to intercultural exchange, international education, and the study of oral traditions. Dr. Biebuyck will be speaking in conjunction with the exhibition "Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist" at the Art Museum of WVU.
The J. Bernard Schultz Lecture Series in Art History was endowed in 2004 by donors who wish to remain anonymous. The lecture series honors former WVU College of Creative Arts Dean Bernie Schultz, who is also professor emeritus of Art History in the School of Art and Design. Each year, the lecture series brings a leading art historian to WVU to enhance the Art History and Museum Professions program, as well as engage the intellectual life of the University and the community.
Biebuyck will give her lecture at 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 in the Art Museum of WVU Museum Education Center.
Learn more about the WVU School of Art and Design at artanddesign.wvu.edu and follow @WVUArtandDesign on social media.