CATALYST STATE: IOWA DESIGN WEEKEND 2009

Featured Speakers

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates is a Chicago-based artist and community organizer whose practice covers performance and installation, urban planning and design, and the traditional fine arts. His varied works offer a platform that opens up challenging issues by presenting them, not as acute encounters, but as invitations to engage hard information creatively.

Gates received an interdisciplinary Masters in Urban Planning and Sculpture from Iowa State University in 2005 and is currently Director of Arts Programming Development at the University of Chicago. The artist’s exhibition record includes Theaster Gates: Temple Exercises, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and upcoming solo exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston. Gates’ work will be included in the 2010 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos

Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos are principal architects with the internationally recognized design firm, Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA). Since its founding in 1995, the Minneapolis-based firm has garnered praise for its work on innovative and responsive environmental projects, including projects focused on sustainability for American University of Beirut, Lebanon and Tulane University, New Orleans. VJAA’s work has received 15 national design awards in the past 12 years, including four National Honor Awards and a Top Ten Green Projects Award from the American Institute of Architects. The firm’s work is the subject of a recent monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press.

FREE reservations for the keynote presentations are required and can be made at membership@desmoinesartcenter.org or by calling 515-271-0327.