Artist and sculptor Julian LaVerdiere, who created and helped implement the "Tribute in Lights" temporary memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001 victims, will host a lecture at 7 p.m. Sept. 23 in UNLV's Classroom Building Complex, Room A108 on the UNLV campus. The lecture is part of the UNLV Art Department's 2003 Visiting Artist Program, coordinated by art professor Robert Wysocki. It is free and open to the public.

LaVerdiere was born in 1971 in Hadley, New York. He received a BFA from The Cooper Union in New York and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University. He has had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami and currently has a solo exhibition on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland. He also has participated in numerous group exhibitions both in the US and in Europe. In 2000 his work was featured in Greater New York at the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, and the same year he was awarded a residency at the World Views Studio Program in lower Manhattan.

Employing a pastiche of symbols, signs, and themes from the past and present, LaVerdiere draws attention to pivotal moments and events that serve as historic harbingers of coming change and paradigm shifts. La Verdiere is represented by the Lehman Maupin Gallery in New York City.

LaVerdiere lives and works in New York City.