Weekend Reading: August 11 Edition

Around Columbus

• Carmen Winant, the artist, Ohio State professor, and co-curator of our fall 2022 show on Carol Newhouse and the WomanShare collective, spoke to Vanity Fair about building a new visual language around abortion.
• Columbus Monthly revealed the new open mic poetry scene emerging with the loss of longtime events Poetry Forum and Writers’ Block, led by writers such as Travis McClerking.
• Actor John Cusack is coming to Columbus for a live screening of Being John Malkovich.
• And there’s another big name with a new Columbus date: Live Nation is bringing Janelle Monae to our own Mershon Auditorium next month.
• Here’s a new write-up on the current Scantland Collection show at the Columbus Museum of Art.
• And Monday brings a sound bath to the museum’s sculpture garden.
• Tuesday, Greater Columbus Arts Council leads a virtual tutorial for artists on pricing your work.
• Thursday, Urban Arts Space opens Two Neighbors, a 10-day installation from emerging artists Sarah Esposito and Alex Vaslov.

Around the Globe

• Congrats go out to artist and past Wex Artist Residency Award recipient Cameron Granger for winning Best Experimental Short at the Blackstar Film Fest for his latest work, Before I Let Go.
• Here’s a great essay by Elaine McMillion Sheldon, who’ll be visiting us September 8 with her film King Coal.
• The Toronto International Film Festival announced a slew of films in its 2023 lineup, such as new works by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Aki Kaurismaki.
• TIFF’s Wavelengths program this year will present experimental works by filmmakers including Rosine Mbakam and Ja’Tovia Gary.
• Saturday, the Film Foundation offers a free 72-hour stream of Egyptian filmmaker Shadi Abdel Salam’s Al Momia and The Delicate Peasant, with a live screening Monday night with commentary.
• Documentarian Steve James podcasted with Film Comment about his latest, A Compassionate Spy. James visited the Wex in 2014 with his Roger Ebert doc, Life Itself.
• Here’s a look back on how filmmaker John Huston fled the country rather than succumb to the career-killing hysteria generated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
• Authors Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché considered the weaponization of nostalgia in response to the commercial juggernaut of Barbenheimer.
• A small town library in Washington has become a center point in the battle over book banning after it refused calls to remove books from its shelves and conservative activists responded with efforts to have the library shut down entirely.
• The culture war has also hit the game Fortnite following the opening of a virtual holocaust museum.
• The Society of Professional Journalists looked at the decline of local arts coverage.
• The New Yorker has chosen a new art critic. Jackson Arn will step into the role that’s been vacant since the death of Peter Schjeldahl.
• Auction house Phillips is launching a new site that will allow artists to sell their work directly to clients.
• In another direct-to-consumer move, istead of following the traditional art career path, Devon Rodriguez built a sizable following on TikTok to get his first gallery show.
• ARTnews put together a roundup of grant opportunities and recent artist awards; recipients include Dakota Mace and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
• The artist representing the US in the Venice Biennale, Jeffrey Gibson, is suing a former gallery for owing him over $600,000.
• The national ballroom scene showed up at gas stations around the country to pay tribute to murder victim O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed after vogueing to Beyonce near the gas pumps of a Brooklyn Shell station. The New York Times also offered more information on the assailant.
• Nick Cave (the musician) took on the topic of ChatGPT and songwriting on The Red Hand Files.
• Health-conscious Robert Crumb fans, there’s a special edition yoga mat honoring his late wife and fellow cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb dropping Tuesday.
• Artforum collected reactions from the art and design world to the death of Paul Reubens.
• Jamie Reid, the iconoclastic designer who created cover art for the Sex Pistols, died at the age of 76.
• Influential abstract painter Brice Marden died at 84.
• And the great filmmaker William Friedkin, subject of a 2017 retrospective at the Wex, passed away at 87.