Weekend Reading: July 28 Edition

Around Ohio

• The Columbus African Festival is happening this weekend in Genoa Park.
• Scott Woods wrote about the end of The Poetry Forum, a weekly open mic that’s been running for 39 tears. Its final get-together is this Monday.
• Hanif Abdurraqib broached the subject of grief with NPR.
• Despite the positive national attention Nina West has brought to the state with a Drag Race appearance, a collaboration with Dolly Parton on a kindness-centered fundraiser, and a role as a Disney Princess—or maybe because of that last part—Ohio Republicans introduced legislation last week banning drag performance everywhere except in clubs.
• The scheduled appearance at Ace of Cups by black metal band Panzerfaust—a band that takes its name from a military weapon developed by Nazi Germany—was interrupted by a last-minute cancellation and charges of discrimination by the musicians.
• Arts Midwest chose nine artists to receive the first Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities, including Cleveland Heights’s Andrea Sosa Fontaine.
• Wednesday, Thurber House will host Ohio Poet Laureate and Wex Pages resident artist Kari Gunter-Seymour.
• Thursday, the Riffe Gallery hosts a creative writing workshop with Cynthia Amoah.
• Wild Goose Creative's open-mic storytelling event DIY is also Thursday.
• Another Thursday option: a guided gallery tour with artist Dan Gerdeman at McConnell Arts Center.
• And Saturday brings August Gallery Hop; among the attractions are a two-person show with partners Michael Bush and Douglas Fordyce at Stonewall Columbus.

Around the Globe

• The Blackstar Film Festival kicks off Wednesday in Philadelphia, but there’s a virtual schedule as well. It includes screenings of works supported by the Wex Film/Video Studio—Ife Oluwamuyide and Claudia Owusu’s Ampe: Leap Into the Sky, Black Girl and Cameron Granger’s Before I Let Go—as well as a short by Ohio Humanities Film Fellow Zeinabu irene Davis.
• Ohio State alum James Hansen just put out the call for entries for the Light Matter Film Festival, a New York-based event happening in November and dedicated to experimental film and media art.
• Following the runaway success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, news broke that Daniel Kaluuya’s upcoming film adaptation of the kids’ show Barney will bear a resemblance to Being John Malkovich.
• The Guardian laid out a case for why something’s got to give in Hollywood, as the old business models have been upended by streaming, AI, and poor box office returns.
• And here’s the latest dispatch from the picket lines of the joint SAG/WGA strike.
• In other streaming-related news, Massachusetts lawmakers are proposing a tax on digital streaming providers to fund public access media.
• Thieves have absconded with sculptural works featured in Tim Burton’s upcoming sequel to Beetlejuice.
• A few arts stories arose on the political front this week. First, President Joe Biden designated a national monument to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
• As part of 2024 federal budget negotiations, conservatives in Congress are trying to block funding of the National Museum of the American Latino.
• And California Rep Robert Garcia unveiled the bipartisan Congressional Popular Arts Caucus at Comic-Con.
• American Theatre offered a snapshot of the current crisis in the field of performance, fueled by inflation and COVID.
• Variety went behind the scenes of David Byrne’s new Imelda Marcos musical.
• Here’s a feature on how choreographers are incorporating AI into their work.
• Alvin Ailey Dance Company’s upcoming 65th season is a tribute to four women who’ve helped define the company.
• Multimedia artist Jeffrey Gibson has been chosen to represent the US at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
• The Guerrilla Girls sat down (in gorilla masks) to discuss their origin story.
• Speaking of guerrillas, California artists Mary Boo Anderson and Zoë Blair-Schlagenhauf have founded an unofficial IKEA residency in response to the disappearance of public gathering spaces.
• A digitized collection of cultural works by 30,000 artists including Robert Rauschenberg and poet Rita Dove will be permanently installed on the moon.
• Maximilíano Duron and Rebecca Solnit are among the winners of the 2023 Rabkin Prizes for Visual Arts Journalism.
• Here’s a look at the work of the National Braille Press, which has been producing books for vision-challenged readers since 1927.
• Leny Andrade, the “first lady of Brazilian jazz,” died at the age of 80.
• Joop Sanders, a founding member of the Abstract Expressionist movement, passed away at 101.
• And Gens X and Y came together in a howl of grief this week with news of the passing of singular singer and activist Sinéad O’Connor. She was 56.