Georgetown University Goldman professorial lecturer in fine arts and theology professor Ori Soltes is the fifth lecturer in the PartnerRe Art Lecture Series.

Mr. Soltes co-curated the popular ?Inside & Out: House & Home? exhibition at the Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) two years ago.

The lecture takes place at the BNG tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Professor Soltes, who will lecture on ?Geometries of the Mind and Spirit: the Cross, the Dome, the Square and the Star in European Art?, is also a highly respected curator, lecturer, author and filmmaker.

This lecture will consider how a number of key geometric forms over time have been used in art as symbols of essential religious and secular concepts. What is the origin of these diverse forms and when and where have they appeared in antiquity and through the centuries to the present day? It will also ask when in particular does the cross become the primary Christian symbol and the six-pointed star the pre-eminent Jewish one? And what relevance does such abstract visual language have for contemporary art?

In addition to his post at Georgetown University, Professor Soltes is a frequent lecturer in the National and Resident Associate Programmes of the Smithsonian Institution. He is the former director and curator of the B?nai B?rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, where he curated more than 80 exhibitions.

He has taught and lectured in 23 universities and museums throughout the US as well as parts of the former Soviet Union, Israel, Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Austria, on subjects ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to ?The Body in Ancient Art?.

As director of the National Jewish Museum, he co-founded the Holocaust Art Restitution Project, of which he is chairman.

Professor Soltes was educated in classics and philosophy at Haverford College, in Classics at Princeton University and the Johns Hopkins University and in interdisciplinary studies at Union University.

He is the author of more than 100 articles, exhibition catalogues, essays and books on a wide range of topics, and the writer, director and narrator of seven documentary videos, including a 26-part, 13-hour-long work on the definition of Jewish art, ?Tradition and Transformation?.

His most recent book is ?Fixing the World: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century? while three further book projects ? ?Symbols of Faith: Art in the Christian?, ?Jewish and Muslim Traditions; The Ashen Rainbow: Essays on the Arts and the Holocaust? and ?Untangling the Tangled Web: A Brief Guide to the Problematic of the Middle East? ? are due to be published later this year.

Professor Soltes is also the executive director of the Committee for the Republic, which is designed to generate public debate on the dangers imposed on the United States by its current foreign policy.

?Geometries of the Mind and Spirit? is at the Bermuda National Gallery tomorrow at a 5.30 p.m. reception and a 6 p.m. lecture. Tickets are $10 and $5 for members. Call 295-9428 to reserve or book online at www.boxoffice.bm.