Weekend Reading: June 14 Edition

Around Ohio

• The Wex will be closed this Wednesday for Juneteenth, but we’ve collected some opportunities around town to celebrate the federal holiday.
• The Dispatch caught up with the two shows now on view at Urban Arts Space.
• A new state budget proposal could mean big things for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
• Taco Bell has an art collection, and it’s a target for thieves as this incident in the Cleveland suburb of Westlake indicates.
• The Columbus Clippers have a call for entries through July 1 for art to adorn drink rails in Huntington Park.
• Tuesday, Greater Columbus Arts Council will host a webinar on accessibility in marketing.
• Also Tuesday, historian Kirk Savage will be at Lincoln Theatre for a talk about Columbus’ place in American history.
• Tuesday at Short North Stage, you can enjoy the concert 7 Villages, featuring performers including Dr. Mark Lomax II.
• And Tuesday at the Southern Theatre, comedian and filmmaker Andrew Callaghan will present his Untitled Film Screening.
• Columbus Underground checked in with locally-based production company Emperium Studios as its recent project Tears for Tasha picks up eyeballs on Tubi.
• Thursday, Topiary Park will host a PBJ & Jazz show of Latin grooves with Will Strickler.
• Next Friday, 934 Gallery has a screening of the cult comedy Mystery Men; get there early to check the new group show featuring works by artists including Eric Anthony Berdis.
• Friday at Cultural Arts Center, there’s a reception for the show Centered and the Loft Gallery presentation of work by Grace Johnson.
• Next Saturday, for some organic creativity, you can learn to build an herb spiral at the Shambhala Meditation Center.
• Rambling House will host a show Saturday with Joe Camerlengo and the Dads. BTW, this week Camerlengo released a new video for his song “Rainbow.”
• Ace of Cups will host the all-day music event North Fest next Saturday, featuring acts including El Camino Acid and A Go Go.
• Also Saturday, RJD2 will have a record release at Land Grant. He talked to Matter about the new disc.
• In related news, Snarls also connected with Matter about their freshly released album.

Around the Globe

• ICYMI, Wex Executive Director Gaëtane Verna, along with Learning & Public Practice Head Dionne Custer Edwards and Curator of Public Programs Emily Haidet, were in Venice this week to lead a symposium on the Canada Pavilion installation by Kapwani Kiwanga.
• Verna and her work with Kiwanga for the Venice Biennale were also covered in a new feature from Ocula.
• Can art save the world? The idea was considered this week at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Venice.
• Artist Adam Pendleton was profiled by The New York Times Style Magazine.
• Legislators in California responded to Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempts to gut arts funding by restoring 75 percent of the proposed cuts.
• The campaign Americans for Contraception marked the occasion of a Senate vote on the right to access birth control with a giant, inflatable IUD sculpture.
• Museums are responding to the accusations of sexual assault being leveled against Kehinde Wiley.
• Activists in London simultaneously defaced a controversial portrait of King Charles and gave a nod to the work of animator Nick Park.
• The home of Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak was also hit by vandals.
• There’s trouble at the American Institute of Architects.
• Korean Canadian artist Cindy Ji Kim discussed the connection between her silk paintings and the films of Austrian misanthrope Michael Haneke.
• Artists Kite and Alisha B. Wormsley want to hear about your dreams for a public art project.
• Artnet shared still relevant life advice from the late surrealist Leonora Carrington.
• And Unherd considered the lessons for modern life that can be gleaned from surrealist André Breton.
• In response to criticism, the Academy Museum will revise its exhibit on Hollywood Jewish history.
• There’s a new museum in California dedicated to TV sci-fi memorabilia that’s opened with support from the likes of William Shatner and George Takei.
• Indiewire crunched the numbers of Hollywood screenplays written by women over 40.
• Quentin Tarantino grilled Robert DeNiro at the Tribeca Film Fest.
• The Conversation considered the insight we can glean from film history into the relationship between humans and AI.
• Photographer Miles Astray was disqualified after winning a photography competition that was intended only for AI-generated images.
• American Theatre posed the question of whether theater can be used to combat the loneliness epidemic.
• Choreographer Ashley R.T. Yergens discussed his new work based on the experience of being a trans man navigating parenthood by surrogacy.
• Meshell Ndegeocello released the first song of her new, James Baldwin-inspired album. Ndgeocello be sharing all of it with Wex audiences September 22.
• The Tiny Desk Concerts series was revived to spotlight Black women artists, and Chaka Khan crushed it.
• The Prison Mirror, a publication that’s been running from inside a Minnesota correctional facility for over a century, was profiled by NPR.
• School officials in Florida banned a book about book bans.
• Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court struck down a book ban effort in that state.
• And a question about the definition of a book ban surfaced.
• Jazz producer Jean-Philippe Allard died at 67.
• Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki passed away at age 95.
• Tony LoBianco, the actor known for such films as The Honeymoon Killers and The French Connection, died at the age of 87.