2020 Year-end reading

New this week

• Is there any better way to spend holiday free time in 2020 than learning how to crochet a miniature dumpster fire?
• There’s also 19th annual Women of African Descent Film Fest streaming this weekend.
• Robert Fripp and wife Toyah Willcox posted a Sex Pistols cover for the holidays as part of their “Sunday Lunch” video series.
• Wex staffer Dorian Ham, aka DJ Citizen Dorian S, has a new album of remixes of songs by local and Columbus-connected artists.
• One of those artists, Lydia Loveless, made a holiday music video; the song is being sold to raise cash for Mid-Ohio Food Collective.
• Here’s a great piece on doc legend Frederick Wiseman.
• For planning ahead purposes, there’s a virtual tour of “Gaudi’s Barcelona” on January 6. 
• And the short films of Columbus-bred filmmaker and part Artist Residency Award recipient Jennifer Reeder will be spotlighted next month on The Criterion Channel.
• Last but not least, this year-end video by Canadian creative agency Public Inc. is like a live-action mood board for 2020 (warning: adult language).

Year in review: on the Wex

• LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze was featured in Artforum. (And ICYMI, here are her powerful images of Breonna Taylor's family for Vanity Fair.)
• Art in America and Columbus Underground  wrote about Stanya Kahn’s No Go Backs.
• Julia Reichert spoke to Columbus Monthly about her Wex-organized career retrospective, the tour of which was suspended by the pandemic.
• Reichert and partner Steven Bognar also picked up an Oscar and an Emmy for their doc American Factory.
• BOMB Magazine and The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis covered Lewis Klahr’s Circumstantial Pleasures.
• The newspaper of record also enjoyed the Paul Lazar/Bebe Miller collaboration Cage Shuffle.
• NPR caught up with Cinetracts ’20 filmmaker Rosine Mbakam.
• Columbus Alive and Modern Art Notes spoke to Tomashi Jackson about the Fall 2020 show Love Rollercoaster, which was also written up in ARTnews and Frieze.
• Assistant Film/Video Curator Chris Stults had a great chat about Cinetracts ’20 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's The Screen Show.
• Always Subject to Change, our new collaboration with WOSU Public Media, started streaming.
• And Art in America named the 2005 Wex exhibition Part Object Part Sculpture among the shows that defined the 2000s.

2020: Around Columbus

• 400: An Afrikan Epic composer Mark Lomax rebooted his video series “Drumversations”.
• The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum shared its “quarantunes” playlist.
• Filmmaker Nikki Swift started a series of streamed conversations with local artists and presenters.
• The Columbus Museum of Art turned Aminah Robinson’s home into a residency space.
• Forbes took notice of Columbus artist and Aminah Robinson House caretaker Bryan Moss.
• The work of street artist Stephanie Rond was featured in Artsy.
• The Greater Columbus Arts Council made an online archive of public artwork created locally in response to the murder of George Floyd. And artist Lisa McLymont reflected on the downside of creating these works.
• GCAC has since collaborated with the city and Maroon Arts Group on the racial equity initiative Deliver Black Dreams.
• The New Bomb Turks (with Wex Store Manager Matt Reber on bass) released a new album to raise funds for the Black, Queer, and Intersectional Collective.
• The Columbus Dispatch made a commitment to increase newsroom diversity.
• The new gallery All People Arts opened in September.
• A street adjacent to the Wex was renamed Willie Phoenix Way.
• Filmmakers Jon Sherman and Melissa Vogley-Woods completed shooting on the first feature film to follow SAG-approved COVID protocols.
• And for good and bad, Streetlight Guild founder Scott Woods’ column “The Other Columbus” for Columbus Alive became essential local reading.

2020: Around the globe

• Steve McQueen dedicated his film project Small Axe to Black Lives Matter. One of the works in it, the sublime Lovers Rock, has become a staple on 2020 Best Of lists.
• BLM was also credited as the single most powerful force in art in 2020 by ArtReview.
• Guy Maddin made his amazing, Vertigo-inspired supercut The Green Fog available to watch for free.
• Cinetracts ’20 and Free Space contributor Cameron Granger became a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree.
• DIY dances for your living space from Merce Cunningham and Yvonne Rainer were unveiled, something to consider for your post-holiday working out.
• Carrie Mae Weems focused on how COVID disproportionately impacts communities of color.
• DEVO was one of the many artists to get into PPE sales.
• Patti Smith launched a podcast.
• Michael Stipe, Takashi Murakami, Tracey Emin, and Jordan Casteel joined a New Museum project to share bedtime stories for people in isolation.
• Emin was also part of a group of artists, which also included Anish Kapoor, who chimed in on the removal of statues honoring historic racists.
• The Mellon Foundation earmarked $250 million for a nationwide project to develop public monuments.
• The Susan B. Anthony Museum rejected a presidential pardon for its namesake.
• Marquee TV launched to present performing arts works online.
• Mark Morris Dance Group leaned into digital access with streaming rehearsals, classes and archived works.
• The archive of the Martha Graham Dance Company was also opened up for the public.
• Mail art made a resurgence.
• Art UK created a way for you to curate your own virtual exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art made a similar opportunity available through Slack.
• A 10 year-old in Connecticut started her own charity to provide art supplies to homeless kids.
• And an eight mile-long work of ancient rock art was discovered in the Amazon.

We'll see you in 2021!