Visiting Artists, Scholars and Designers

Photo Animal Hospital in Gunma

Photo: Okubo Animal Hospital in Gunma, Japan, Kengo Kuma and Associates. Project Architect: Masafami Yukimoto.

POSTPONED: Masafumi Yukimoto (Arch '98) to Deliver Robert Z. Shuman Lecture

Yukimoto is the founder of komy studio, an architectural and interior design practice based in his hometown of Takasaki, Japan, and Tokyo that focuses on experimentation with process, materials and fabrication. In his lecture, Yukimoto will explore his experiences of studying and working in the United States, and how, upon returning to Japan, he integrated the perspectives gained from American practices into his work.

Yukimoto will deliver Tyler's 2024 Robert Z. Shuman Lecture on February 22 at 4:00pm. Learn more.


Shawn Evans and Joseph Kunkel of MASS Design Group to Give 2024 Knowles Lecture

MASS Design Group recently merged with the Santa Fe office of AOS Architects, a firm with offices in Philadelphia and Santa Fe. The group is focused on community-based preservation and cultural conservation, including a research-based segment of their practice. Evans and Kunkel will discuss their focus on community-based design and cultural heritage preservation, particularly in Indigenous communities, and their work with the federal government on standards for Indigenous housing and settlements.

Shawn Evans and Joseph Kunkel will deliver the 2024 Knowles Architecture Alumni Lecture on March 20 at 6:00pm. Learn more. 


(re)FOCUS Panel: (im)positions - Women Portraying Women’s Bodies

Tyler and Temple Contemporary hosts an alumni panel discussion entitled (im)positions - Women Portraying Women’s Bodies, featuring a conversation among visual artists Erin M. Riley (MFA ’09), Autumn Wallace (BFA ’18), and Chelsey Luster (BFA ’19), moderated by art historian and Tyler Professor Emerita Therese “Terry” Dolan, PhD.

The event is part of (re)FOCUS 2024, a citywide festival (January 27—May 31) celebrating the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking 1974 festival Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts, one of the first large-scale surveys of the work of contemporary American women artists. Learn more.


Critical Dialogues and AED Presents

This spring 2024, the Critical Dialogue Series and AED Presents offer a diverse lineup of practicing artists, faculty, designers and arts professionals to speak, including:

  • Sebastian Duncan-Portuondo, a Miami-based artist who participates in multi-directional cultural traditions
  • Ilana Savdie, an artist who draws from the history of abstraction, folklore, human anatomy, horror, and pop culture, to create uncanny abstractions considering how power structures can be resisted, transgressed, and dismantled
  • Jordan Kantor, a San Francisco-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of painting and photography

Visit Tyler's Calendar of Events for more information.


About Our Annual Lecture Series 

Each year, the Tyler School of Art and Architecture welcomes scores of artists, scholars, architects, designers and professionals from the top of their fields. These inspiring individuals connect with students through lectures, readings and demonstrations to encourage further collaboration and excellence both within the Tyler community and the broader public.

The Critical Dialogue Series brings leading practitioners, scholars, curators and other arts professionals to discuss current issues in art and design. Over the last two decades, the program has featured hundreds of speakers.

Architecture and Environmental Design (AED) Presents is a combined series of architecture, landscape architecture and city planning lectures.

The Laurie Wagman Visiting Artist and Artist-in-Residence Series, presented by our Glass program, reflects Tyler's emphasis on interdisciplinarity as a school that marries research with practice. Artists bring their diverse backgrounds, experience, and expertise to the studio—from traditional, to innovative, to experimental—and speak to students, offer demonstrations, and stimulate exchanges of new ideas.

The Jack Wolgin Annual Visiting Artist and Lecturer is an endowed visiting artist program that brings one of the nation's most influential artists and thinkers to campus to work with Tyler students and present a free public lecture each year. Previous Wolgin artists include:

  • Hito Steyerl, 2023 — a German filmmaker, moving image artist, and cultural critic who roots her investigative practice in the proliferation of digital images and their large-scale implications
  • Jennie C. Jones, 2022 — an interdisciplinary artist whose works feature architectural felt and acoustic panels
  • Cecilia Vicuña, 2020 — a poet, artist, filmmaker, and activist who addresses ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization
  • Nick Cave, 2019 — a fabric sculptor, dancer, and performance artist who creates large-scale installations and live performance pieces
  • Rick Lowe, 2018 — a visual artist and community organizer with a focus in social-practice art
  • LaToya Ruby Frazier, 2017 — a visual artist and photographer who teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago
  • Judy Pfaff, 2016 — an installation and sculpture artist, often cited as the medium's "pioneer"

The Jackson Lecture in Byzantine Art, generously sponsored by Lynn Jackson and hosted by the Art History Department, is an annual event connecting the Tyler community to cutting-edge research on visual and material culture of the medieval Mediterranean. Previous Jackson Lecture scholars include:  

  • Dr. Andrea Achi (Metropolitan Museum of Art): “Byzantium and Africa (4th—15th centuries CE)” 
  • Dr. Roland Betancourt (University of California, Irvine): “The Ethiopian Eunuch: Gender and Racialization in Byzantium” 
  • Dr. Ivan Drpić (University of Pennsylvania): “Byzantine Pectorals: Piety and Poetry” 
  • Dr. Michael W. Cothren (Swarthmore College): “Surveying Islamic and Gothic Art and Architecture: Reflections of a Textbook Author” 
  • Dr. Andrea Olsen Lam (Biola University): “The Expectant Icon: Transformation and Ritual in Byzantium” 
  • Dr. Amy Papalexandrou (Stockton University): “Listening In: Soundways and Sonic Spaces of the Byzantines”