Weekend Reading: January 5 Edition

Around Ohio

• The Columbus Film Critics Association announced its award winners for 2023, with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon taking top honors. Wim Wenders’s Anselm, which we’re screening the weekend of January 26, tied for Best Documentary. (Note: this writer is an emertius member of the association.)
• Michael Bush reflected on his abstract work and upcoming plans in a piece about his solo exhibition opening at Gravity Saturday night.
• Contemporary Theatre of Ohio Artistic Director Leda Hoffman spelled out how the company aims to build a national reputation as an anti-racist arts org.
• Scott Woods chose a murder mystery by Sara Herchenroether as his favorite book by a local author.
• Artists and curators Layan B. and Noel Maghathe shared a reason to make a trip west to Gettysburg.
• Wednesday, Mid-Ohio Filmmakers Association is having its next meetup.
• Thursday brings some hard choices: You can head to the Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design for its next exhibition, the Katie Davis-Barbara Campbell Thomas collab Painting for a Space.
• Or pop up to the McConnell Arts Center for the opening of April Sunami’s latest solo exhibition.
• Or get creative with Amy Turn Sharp at Secret Studio.
• Or check out the COSI After Dark event focused on body modification.
• Maureen O’Keefe discussed her paintings ahead of her solo show opening next Friday at Wild Goose.
• Also next weekend, Hayley Gallery opens a show on Saturday featuring all the artists it reps, including Marcus Blackwell and Kate Morgan.
• 934 Gallery hosts a one-night pop-up Friday, curated by artist and 934 intern Kya Kopans.

Around the Globe

• Filmmaker Nancy Savoca discussed the new restoration of her long unavailable 1993 treat Household Saints. We’re excited to present the film and welcome the filmmaker to the Wex March 1 as part of this year’s Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration.
• In connection with the release of his new monograph, interdisciplinary artist RaMell Ross shared some of his photos of the American South with The Guardian. Ross presented his sublime doc Hale County, This Morning, This Evening at the 2018 Unorthodocs.
• America Ferrera recounted the making of her epic Barbie monologue.
• Actress Taraji P. Henson spoke to The New York Times following comments she made about pay equity going viral.
• The new movie musical version of The Color Purple is being praised for its wealth of references to classic Black musicals.
• Filmmaking brothers Josh and Benny Safdie have decided not to make movies together any more.
• This week in “How did this not happen sooner?”, someone coaxed Steve McQueen, the artist and filmmaker, into sharing his favorite work by Steve McQueen, the classic Hollywood actor.
• A new book looks at women artists such as Hilma af Klint who claimed a connection to the spirit world.
• Over last weekend, a database leaked listing 16000 artists whose work was scraped by the AI company Midjourney to train its image generators.
• Outspoken art dealer Stefan Simchowitz announced that he’s running for the US Senate seat left vacant by the death of Dianne Feinstein.
• Steamboat Willie might have hogged the spotlight, but works by Bertolt Brecht, Hank Williams, Virginia Woolf, and many others also entered the public domain January 1.
• Under the Radar Fest is back, this time spread across Manhattan and Brooklyn.
• Longtime Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks wrote his final column.
• MacArthur fellow Patrick Makuakāne discussed his work in the Hawaiian tradition of hula.
• Dance writer Wendy Perron wrote about the use of numbers in the work of George Balanchine and Trisha Brown.
• Dancer and choreographer Maurice Hines passed away at the age of 80.
• Actor Tom Wilkinson died at the age of 80.
• Alexis Smith, a California artist whose work includes the terrazzo tile floors in the Schottenstein Center, died at 74.
• Painter Martha Diamond passed at 79.
• And artist Pope.L passed away at 68. His work was featured at the Wex in the 2020 exhibition Climate Changing.