Weekend Reading: May 24 Edition

Around Ohio

• The Yellow Springs Film Festival opened a submission portal for the inaugural Julia Reichert Award, a short film prize of $3000 being offered to emerging female documentarians. Applications are open through June 26.
• Saturday afternoon, Laughing Ogre Comics is hosting a sale and fundraiser for longtime NBC4 meteorologist Bob Nunnally, who’s been off the air battling cancer.
• Ahead of a Saturday for the Urban Arts Space exhibition FREEQUENCY, Matter checked in with curators Iyana Hill and April Sunami and contributing artist Arris J. Cohen about the meaning of “Afrofuturism.”
• And ahead of the June 7 kickoff of the Columbus Arts Festival, Columbus Underground talked with Emerging Festival Artist Emily Sekerak.
• 10TV offered a behind-the-scenes on the locally shot, recently wrapped independent film Down to the Felt.
• S/O to Wex grant writer Linda Baird for staying on top of allll the eye-popping drama surrounding Columbus City Schools this week.
• Jon Stommel discussed his fun, colorful figurative work, now on view at Home Sweet Gallery and on the side of Blockfort.
• Ohio is the star of a new video from Twenty One Pilots.
• Artist Anne Spurgeon is launching a summer art school for kids June 3 to explore topics such as kindness and sustainability.
• The National Center for Choreography-Akron named Rosie Herrera the recipient of a $50,000 Knight Choreography Prize.
• Wednesday, Ohio State professor Joe Ponce will lead a discussion of Asian American film at Upper Arlington Public Library.
• Friday brings the award ceremony for the Thurber Prize for American Humor to the Columbus Museum of Art.
• You can also get down and creepy Friday at Spring Halloween, a dance party to raise money for Star House.
• Next Saturday, Hilliard Arts Council has an opening reception of work by artist and educator Dan Gerdeman and 15 of his current and former students.
• Saturday, shutterbugs are welcome to bring a camera to Urban Arts Space for a guided photo tour to consider meaning and perspectives in portraiture.
• Also next Saturday is Gallery Hop in the Short North. In addition to indoor attractions like the group show Softer at Sean Christopher Gallery, there’s the Hops on High street festival featuring a range of performances, and live street painting by artists including Neisha Holloway and Chris Thompson.
• The Poetry Cauldron will also host the spoken word event Spellbound on Saturday.
• There’s also the option of starting next Saturday with the OTE Art Walk Festival along Bryden Road.

Around the Globe

• Tuesday afternoon, The Brooklyn Rail will host an online conversation between Daisy Desrosiers, executive director of The Gund at Kenyon College, and Ming Smith, the subject of concurrent exhibitions this fall at the Gund, Columbus Museum of Art, and the Wex. Author Emmanuel Duma will also join in the talk.
• With the Andy Warhol Museum’s Pop District entering its second phase, Artnet considered whether it offers a model that other institutions can follow.
• Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District may face closure without government support.
• It appears that Russian intelligence is behind an incident in which graffiti associated with calls for a ceasefire in Gaza was painted all over Paris’ Holocaust memorial.
• Sable Elyse Smith won the 2026 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation prize.
• Hyperallergic offered advice on how grant makers can support artists of color.
• Damien Hirst was caught backdating at least 1000 artworks that were made later than claimed, often by assistants.
• Kehinde Wiley was accused of sexual assault by Ghana-based artist Joseph Awuah Darko.
• The University of North Carolina School of the Arts settled a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by dozens of alumni.
• From the iconic fist pump photo of Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes to an award show shot of The Spice Girls, here are 38 images that helped redefine the way women are seen.
• California Governor Gavin Newsom is aiming to address a budget deficit by slashing the state’s arts funding.
• Pixar is also tightening its belt.
• Filmmaker Harmony Korine spent an hour talking with—and questioning the existence of—a reporter from The Guardian.
• Streaming service Cultpix got a nod from The New York Times for its dedication to the wild, the weird, and the low-budget.
• Director Ali Abbasi, who received a standing ovation at Cannes for his new film The Apprentice, seems to be taking a cease-and-desist from the movie’s real-life inspiration in stride.
• Variety considered whether the real woman behind the stalker character in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer has an actual defamation case.
• If the Drake/Kendrick Lamar feud is getting boring, here’s a new piece on four legendary art world beefs including Donald Judd’s clash with Dia Art Foundation.
• There’s something wild afoot with the ownership status of Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion.
• The role of phones in accessing new music may be putting kids off discovering what they like on their own.
• Emerging curators, there’s a hot fellowship opportunity available now via venerable New York multidisciplinary space The Kitchen. Deadline to apply is May 31.
• This week in AI, OpenAI researcher Jan Leike resigned out of concern that the long-term risks of artificial intelligence aren’t being taken seriously.
• And the worlds of dance and neuroscience will come together next Friday at an AI-inspired virtual performance in which dancers will be hooked up to EEG caps to record the electrical signals in their brain as they move.
• Ryan Maw reflected on finding Instagram stardom by sharing his rehearsals of classic Hollywood tap routines from films such as White Christmas and What a Way to Go!
• German author Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize for her novel Kairos.
• A blistering slave narrative by John Swanson Jacobs that was all but forgotten for over 150 years is once again seeing the light of day.
• Following news last week of the death of Alice Munro, Open Culture collected 20 short stories by the author that you can read for free online.
• Artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz died at the age of 77.

• Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock died at 53 from complications of cancer. Best known for his immersive fast food doc Super Size Me, Spurlock also had connections to Columbus through the “Minimum Wage” episode of his FX series 30 Days and his feature sequel Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!