Weekend Reading: July 7 Edition

Around Columbus

• The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum had big news this week: it just received a donation of the collection of legendary artist and Mad magazine contributor Basil Wolverton.
• A USA Today poll named Otherworld one of the best immersive art experiences in the country.
• Matter covered the problems the Maroon Arts Group Box Park is having related to gentrification in its neighborhood, including complaints about the GCAC-supported on-site mural Deliver Black Dreams being too political.
• Tuesday, you can take in some jazz when the Monica Shriver Quartet with special guest Rahsaan Barber plays Old First Presbyterian Church.
• Make sure you leave Wednesday night open for a Greater Columbus Arts Council discussion at Columbus Metropolitan Library to help shape the city’s public art plan.
• We’re excited to present Ohio Shorts at Gravity as part of Franklinton Fridays.
• Franklinton Fridays also brings the opening of a new space, Project Unicorn, presenting works by Michael Bush, Larry Doyle, and Jeni Pie.
• Saturday, Raina Telgemeir, the subject of the current show at the Billy, will stop by Upper Arlington Public Library.
• Also Saturday,  Hopkins Hall will host a community night for its current show, All Because of You, Us.
• Saturday night, 934 Gallery hosts a farewell party for its current murals with a set from Sweet Teeth.
• Saturday afternoon, Franklinton Farms is hosting a friendly competition to build a “poetry fort.”
• Lastly, next weekend, Columbus Metropolitan Library is hosting the Columbus Book Festival.

Around the globe

• We’re excited to share this BOMB magazine interview with Wex exhibiting artist Sa’dia Rehman.
• The Warhol Foundation granted a total of $4 million to organizations including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the aforementioned BOMB magazine.
• ARTnews caught up with Carolyn Lazard’s Crip Time, a work we presented in the 2021 show Climate Changing.
• A new show at the National Portrait Gallery reveals how Frederick Douglass used his image to fight slavery.
• For those who can’t make it to London, here’s a write-up on the new Barbican Center show by Carrie Mae Weems.
• Artforum shared a video interview with hannah baer about her work with AI deepfakes.
• Nancy Yao, the controversy-mired founding director of the Smithsonian’s Women’s History Museum, has stepped down.
• The BBC covered how mindful drawing can promote calm and happiness.
• An Orson Welles fan has used animation to recreate lost scenes from the filmmaker’s 1941 work The Magnificent Ambersons, which was taken away from Welles and recut by studio RKO.
• Visionary filmmaker Robert Eggers talked up his upcoming remake of Nosferatu.
• Amid concerns over the less-than-stellar box office for the new Indiana Jones sequel, the faith-based distributor Angel Studios announced that grosses for its new film Sound of Freedom were helped by encouraging a pay-it-forward approach among ticket buyers.
• Following the Supreme Court decision to protect a web designer’s right to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, Sopranos and White Lotus star Michael Imperioli announced that he forbids “bigots and homophobes” from watching his work.
• The New Yorker ran a piece about the rise and fall of smooth jazz that mentions a 2021 work by past Wex Artist Residency Award recipient Penny Lane.
• A study organized by the nonprofit of Blondie drummer Clem Burke found that drumming helps students with autism.
• PJ Harvey spoke to NPR about her new album, an extension of her 2022 epic poem Orlam.
• The home of Louis Armstrong now holds the jazz legends archives.
• The improv group Upright Citizens Brigade announced it will open its own space in New York City.
• Threads, Meta’s competitor for the flames-engulfed Twitter, made a big debut. (You’ll find us there @wexarts, btw.)