Weekend Reading: February 16 Edition

Around Ohio

• Matter caught up with local Palestinian poets Sara Abou Rashed, Mandy Shunnarah, and Dalal Shalash.
• Right in time for the start of our Sonnets and Cinema film series, Poetry Slam Archive dropped a bunch of new videos of readings by local poets including Christa Belle, Eric Darby, Neo Soul, and film series organizer Scott Woods.
• It’s also a big week for new children’s books from local authors: Rafael Rosado released Call Me Iggy and Maggie Smith dropped her latest, My Thoughts Have Wings.
• A new report from Greater Columbus Arts Council confirms that city residents are all in for public art.
• Smith also celebrated her inclusion in the list of artists to receive 2024 Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. Other recipients include Jenny Deller and Laura Larson.
• The Nest Theatre is expanding.
• Big news from up north: FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is shuttering after two editions. The event was launched in 2018.
• Thursday, writers Rob Harvilla and Kevin Elliott will discuss Harvilla’s new book at Spoonful Records.
• Next weekend, Sam Rietenbach has a show opening at Encova Insurance Friday.
• You can imbibe at a Satanic Cocktail Party Saturday at Witchlab.

Around the Globe

• Nathalie Joachim, who’ll perform at the Wex April 13, was featured on NPR’s new Music Friday playlist. 
• Here’s the story behind the successful search for a bass owned by Paul McCartney that was lost five decades ago.
• New Orleans rapper Flagboy Giz talked about blending Black Masking Indian traditions with rap.
• In Australia, architect Jefa Greenaway is leading the way in designing building that embrace sustainability and collaboration with Indigenous communities.
• A new building on the Hudson River, designed by the research group Terreform ONE, is causing a stir with its living tree fabrication.
• In what’s likely a sign of things to come on Oscar night, Oppenheimer’s Christopher Nolan took top honors at the Directors Guild of America Awards.
• Nonbinary dancers Ashton Edwards and Taylor Stanley discussed their work in Justin Peck’s new show at New York City Ballet.
• ICYMI, The New Yorker ran a great piece on the art world before and after the arrival of curator and current Studio Museum in Harlem Director Thelma Golden.
• Film distributor GKids is earning acclaim as “the A24 of animation.”
• On the eve of the release of the second part of his Dune adaptation, Denis Villeneuve got a nod for including a notable J.M.W. Turner painting in his 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 as part of a series on art and pop culture.
• Author Lucy Sante has a new memoir out about her decision to transition gender at the age of 66.
• The National Book Awards are now open to competitors from outside the US.
• Following public outcry, Arts Council England has rethought its new guideline about the possibility of withdrawing funding to artists who make “political statements.”
• Yoko Ono is having a major moment at the Tate Modern.
• And this week, the Tate awarded Korean-born artist Mire Lee the 2024 Turbine Hall commission.
• Digital Art pioneer Auriea Harvey is getting her first institutional survey at the Museum of the Moving Image.
• AI image generation might currently be a hot topic, but British painter Harold Cohen has been developing a prototype of art-making AI for over 40 years, and some of the results are now on view at the Whitney.
• And speaking of AI, a new initiative called The Shotline is using computer learning to revive the voices of those killed in mass shootings so they can call elected officials.
• On the other end of the tech spectrum, artist Pablo Declan is creating “non-A.I.” drawings prompted by suggestions sent through an online form.
• Works by Jeff Koons will be making their way into space.
• New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering making graffiti a hate crime.
• The Brooklyn Museum opened a show featuring the collection of Swiss Beatz and Alicia Keys, including works by Arthur Jafa, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley.
• The Museum of Modern Art announced that Michelle Kuo will take the newly created position of chief curator at large and publisher.
• In other MoMA news, the institution is paying for having a Marc Chagall painting with questionable provenance in its collection for years.
• Climate change activists splattered soup onto Claude Monet’s Le Printemps.
• Art insurers are ringing the alarm bells about the trend of artworks being damaged by gallery visitors taking selfies.
• Clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia could hold the very first depiction of humans kissing.
• For the week of Valentine’s, The New York Times made a list of documentaries that capture something true about love, including jaw-dropping works like Fire of Love and Time.
• Meanwhile, The Guardian, inspired by Wim Wenders’s Anselm, rounded up the best movies about artists that are currently available to stream. The writer laments the unavailability of Vincent and Theo in the UK, but in America, you can find Robert Altman’s film about the brothers Van Gogh on Tubi.
• Amazon has a new rom com streaming with Camila Mendes that enters the art world through a lowly assistant at an auction house.
• Director Alex Cox is working on a sequel to his iconic 1984 cult film Repo Man.
• Thanks to the Anita Hill-chaired Hollywood commission, workers on low-budget film productions can now look forward to sexual harassment and discrimination protections.
• Lastly, a merger between streaming services Funimation and Crunchyroll is illustrating the sometimes ephemeral nature of digital libraries.