Weekend reading: February 12 edition

Around Columbus

• Columbus Underground has an interview with locally based Climate Changing artist Danielle Julian Norton.
• The Greater Columbus Arts Council has opted to cancel the 2021 Columbus Arts Fest.
• But in better news, GCAC has opened GCAC Gallery in its downtown space.
• Jazz & Ribs Fest is also off this year, however.
• Keeping on virtually, St. James Tavern will present its 10th annual Valentine’s Day Theatre Shorts Festival Sunday This year’s theme is “Lovesick.”
• Radio 614 also has Valentine’s Day programming: a virtual Heat Wave! with “songs of heartbreak, redemption, freedom, and pain.”
• And for more romantic listening, check out this remixed playlist from DJ Citizen Dorian S. He promises a new one is coming on the 14th.
• ReelAbilities is back Wednesday with a 48-hour virtual screening of short films.
• And Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences has two intriguing afternoon talks this week: one on Wednesday with Ryan Gielen, the director of the film My Beautiful Stutter (advance registration includes free access to the film) and one Thursday about the past and future of the Department of Film, Theater, and Media Arts.

Around the globe

• HBO has a new doc from Sam Pollard, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, that recognizes the legacy of African American artist, collector, and curator David C. Driskell. Theaster Gates, Kerry James Marshall, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kara Walker (whose work is pictured at top of page) are among the superstars featured. This page has related educational materials and art-making activities.
• Barack and Michelle Obama have announced the next round of projects they’re developing with Netflix.
• There’s a pandemic-inspired A-list movie club with Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino among the members, and you can join in at home with suggestions of great British films like Dead of Night and The Devil Rides Out from their friend, Martin Scorsese.
• A lost screenplay by Stanley Kubrick is being produced.
• There’s a new shorts program from e-flux exploring the unstable line between reality and fiction with works from Hito Steyerl, Chris Marker, and many more.
• This short from The New York Times and the Sundance Film Fest shares the story of Black film composer Kris Bowers and the barriers broken by his grandfather.
• A new initiative at Stanford University will study and share Asian American art by artists including Ruth Asawa and Martin Wong.
• Indian philanthropist Amar Singh has committed $5 million to helping museums diversify their collections.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the latest institution to consider selling works from its collection to pay the bills.
• The Guardian caught up with Congolese activist Mwazulu Diyabanza, who takes from European museums African artworks acquired through colonization and repatriates them back to their home countries.
• MoMA curator Paola Antonelli discussed how the pandemic will influence the design world. 
• And artists such as Simon Denny and Anicka Yi considered how COVID will reshape the art world.
• Jazz legend Chick Corea passed away at 79. Here are some essential recordings.
• And Jean-Claude Carrière, the film and theater writer behind Luis Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire and other art house classics, passed away at the age of 89.