Weekend reading: April 8 edition

Around Ohio

• Wex Associate Curator of Exhibition Daniel Marcus has a new piece on Artforum.com on the book It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic.
• Saturday, Open Door Columbus opens the annual show This Inspired That.
• Monday through Wednesday, the virtual 2022 Creative Ohio Advocacy Summit will make the case for Ohio being the creative capital of the Midwest.
• Film Columbus has a free webinar Tuesday on navigating film festivals.
• The registration deadline is April 19 for a two-part CCAD class April 23 and 30 with Lauren McCubbin on crowdfunding a comic book.
• Local neurodivergent artist Tommi Lee Gillard and her work made the news this week.
• The nonprofit Cbus Libraries has released a free PDF of its 2021 book Libraries Rise: Black Perspectives in Libraries.
• The Cincinnati nonprofit FotoFocus shared plans for a new arts center in its hometown.
• Julie Mehretu will be creating a new mural in Cleveland as part of FRONT Triennial.
• Looking ahead to next weekend, Streetlight Guild opens The Art of Terry Norman Friday night.
• Also Friday, the late 83 Gallery opens a reunion show at Blockfort.
• And jazz artist Phil Maneri will present the improvised multimedia event Kaleidoscope at The Vanderelli Room.
• Jazz lovers can also check out the Olde Towne Jazz Coffeehouse next Saturday at Old First Presbyterian Church.
• And don't forget, music lovers: next Saturday also brings Record Store Day.

Around the globe

• The Guggenheim Foundation announced its 2022 Fellowship recipients and the list includes familiar names for Wex audiences including Ja’Tovia Monique Gary, a virtual guest for last year’s Cinema Revival, and Courtney Stephens, who’ll be at the Wex this Sunday afternoon for our free presentation of Terra Femme with the student group Cinéseries.
• According to UNESCO, more than 50 cultural sites in Ukraine have become casualties of Russian aggression.
• Ironically, UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report is being criticized for not being diverse enough.
• With excitement building for Robert Eggers’ new film The Northman, Film Stage shared a link to his debut short.
• Here’s an interesting historical perspective on the Academy’s handling of Will Smith.
• Publisher’s Weekly shared a recap of a recent Pen America program on the censorship and other prohibitive factors that complicate reading while imprisoned.
• MoMA introduced a Google Chrome extension that'll show you works from its collection when you open a new tab.
• Here’s an argument that an increasing cultural focus on neuroscience shortchanges the richness and complexity in experiencing art.
• Laurie Anderson was profiled on 60 Minutes.
• The Guardian wrote up some companies and performers experimenting with extended reality in dance.
• Veteran writer and media critic Eric Boehlert died at 57 this week in a bicycle accident.
• And Michelle Materre, a force who promoted Black women’s voices in film, died at the age of 67.