Weekend reading: May 1 edition

Around Columbus

• Virtual Gallery Hop is back, and this month the Wex has some things to add to the mix; take a look when the online event launches at 2 PM. It also features participation by virtually all the neighborhood galleries and a number of retailers. (At the top of the page, one of the Hop offerings from Lindsay Gallery: Across the Universe by Amber Groome.)
• Urban Art Space has a “Crafternoons” event this Saturday at 1 PM on Facebook Live on how to turn your bread baking activities into sculpture sessions.
• Fotofocus, the Ohio organization behind the country’s largest photography festival, has diverted $800,000 earmarked for this year’s event to regional arts organizations.
• Actors’ Theatre of Columbus has opted to cancel its upcoming season in Schiller Park.
• Ohio State’s Sports and Society Initiative is holding weekly discussions on issues relevant to the moment with guests including members of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
• Local treasure Mark Lomax just shared the latest in his series of YouTube "Drumversations"—informal master classes touching on a range of topics.
• Ohio Arts Council launched a new project, Ohio Arts Beacon of Light, to give the state’s artists a place to share, connect, and cope with the challenges presented by the coronavirus.
• And Alive has a roundup of Tiny Desk Concerts by Columbus artists.
   

Around the globe

• Start the month with a great playlist commemorating May Day, curated by LaToya Ruby Frazier for her gallery, Gavin Brown Enterprises.
• Garage has collected the best DJ sets online.
• There’s a new movement video burning up the internet: the dancing pallbearers of Ghana.
• A visual treat out of Detroit is now on view: a virtual show in abandoned spaces from Library Street Collective.
• American Repertory Theatre has partnered with Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health to create a roadmap for theaters to reopen safely.
• Have you seen some of the creative hair makeovers people have been undertaking at home, or attempted one yourself? It can be a coping mechanism.
• While we’re on appearances, here’s an Instagram account of incredibly stylish people sharing the latest in quarantine fashion.
• A group of teens is organizing their own Met Gala and everyone’s invited.
• The famous quilters of Gee’s Bend have committed to making masks for every person in their small Alabama community.
• Artists Marilyn Minter and JR share how they’ve kept assistants working while they can’t work together.
• Art Basel has come up with a plan in the event of future fair cancelations.
• Frieze offers a tour of what to see digitally in Paris.
• The Brooklyn Art Collective MSCHF has been keeping busy by cutting up a Damien Hirst dot print and selling off the parts.
• The annual “On Our Radar” list of projects that have advanced to the first round of selection for the Creative Capital Award is out and among the artists to make the cut is Ohio State Assistant Professor Jared Thorne, who recently interviewed the President of the IUE-CWA for this blog. 
• Artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg are streaming their new stop-motion film about shame through Tuesday, May 5.
• Filmmaker Claire Denis shares her lockdown diary.
• And here’s what Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon has been up to: “I want to keep soaking up humanity in various forms.“
• Enjoy some insight into what some of the most interesting directors in the world—from Denis and Kleber Mendonça Filho to Ava DuVernay and Edgar Wright—are watching right now.
• A recent Instagram Live masterclass with Band of Outsiders filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is now available with English subtitles.
• Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You has been holding in a Wex virtual screening room for several weeks. Here’s a new piece on how it couldn’t be more relevant right now.
• If you’ve seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you're familiar with the work of Orangey the cat. Here’s an appreciation of “the hardest working cat in show biz” (and a link to a short inspired by it).
• For this year at least, the Academy is relaxing its rule about streaming films being ineligible for Oscar consideration.
• You think things are weird and they just keep getting weirder: it looks like the release of Trolls: World Tour could be a defining moment in film history. 
• Plan ahead: next Friday night, Lionsgate Films will livestream John Wick for free as part of an event hosted by Jamie Lee Curtis with special guests.
• Lastly, in honor of the new Pauline Kael doc opening virtually at the Wex today, here’s the film critic's appearance on the classic sketch comedy show SCTV to discuss a fictional 3D remake of Midnight Cowboy.

Hope it's a good weekend. Don't forget your mask if you're heading out of the house.