Weekend reading: April 2 edition

Around Ohio

• Our own Chris Stults joins filmmaker Michael Robinson in a virtual conversation streaming through April 11 that’s part of a free online program featuring the artist's work.
• ICYMI, here’s a Q&A with Wex Film/Video Studio editor Alexis McCrimmon about her work with artists and her own installation project.
• The new episode of It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders offers a great lead-in to Hanif Abdurraqib’s talk this Wednesday with Terri Francis from the Black Film Center/Archive.
• Tuesday afternoon, the Greater Columbus Arts Council hosts an online session on how nonprofits can develop financial risk strategies.
• W. Ralph Walters debuted Painting The Unexplained, a new YouTube series about real-life supernatural stories that have inspired his paintings.
• Artist Ashley Pierce shared her experience in an ongoing residency at Iowa’s Waubonsie State Park.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art announced new acquisitions by African American artists including Amy Sherald and D’Angelo Lovell Williams.
• Devo now has a holiday of its own in the band’s hometown of Akron.
• And looking ahead, Franklinton Fridays next weekend has Mourning Light at The Vanderelli Room, a show of work by young local refugees from over 21 countries at 400 West Rich, and a Secret Studio group show around the theme of “warmth” among the attractions.

Around the globe

• The Karrabing Film Collective, contributors to Cinetracts ’20, is the recipient of the 2021 Eye Art & Film Prize.
• The 50th anniversary edition of New Directors New Films announced a hybrid lineup for 2021, which will roll out starting April 28. 
• The first trailer is out for Janicza Bravo’s much-anticipated, tweet storm-inspired indie film Zola.
• There’s a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts on the economic impact of the arts and cultural sector.
• Among the benefits of the American Rescue Plan is a much-needed bailout for the musicians union.
• A new COVID-19 grant program is focused specifically on helping independent bookstores and comic shops.
• A release date of August 3 was announced for the new graphic novel written by the late congressman John Lewis. 
• The Harlem Fine Arts Show is now live online.
• The Louvre has put its entire collection online.
• PBS wants you to tell you story for its new docuseries, American Portrait.
• Warning: the NFT craze might be a classic bubble.
• Harlem Renaissance artist Augusta Savage was profiled in the New York Times’ “Black History Continued” series.
• Check out these 16 design concepts for a global future.
• A new Hong Kong gallery’s decision not to present an Ai Wei Wei work, along with an announcement that the Oscars won’t be broadcast in the country for the first time in decades, has some concerned about increasing censorship by the Chinese government. (And here’s what Ai had to say about it.)
• Here in the US, Philip Guston’s controversial Ku Klux Klan paintings will see the light of day this fall at Hauser & Wirth.
• African medieval civilizations that have been erased from world history are being resurrected in LEGO form by artist Ekow Minako.
• Here’s a new video chat from Artforum between Ed Ruscha and writer Rachel Kushner.
• And here’s a tribute from friends and colleagues to groundbreaking Black theater artist Douglas Turner Ward, who passed in February.