Weekend reading: October 30 edition

Around Columbus

• If you’re staying in for Halloween, Highball is virtual this year…
• ...Artist April Sunami’s leading a studio workshop for your screen…
• ...And Nina West has debuted the Halloween spectacular Heels of Horror on Vimeo.
• If you’re thinking of going out Saturday, All People Arts is hosting a mural painting party starting at 11 AM…
• ...400 Square is having open studios and family-friendly activities with limited capacity starting at 4 PM…
• ...And Studio 35 partnered with the convention center for an in-person, spatially distanced Halloween night presentation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Seen at top of page.)
• The Columbus Jewish Film Festival kicks off online Sunday.
• Richard Duarte Brown and the aforementioned April Sunami are hosting a Creative Happy Hour on Thursday for the Columbus Museum of Art.
• WOSU released a video of construction progress at its new hub across the street from the Wex.
• Jacoti Sommes of Hugs & Kisses is working on music in Los Angeles and checked in on Facebook.
• Columbus art legend Elijah Pierce is getting national attention for a new retrospective at Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation.
• Local jazz favorite Arnett Howard is facing a critical mystery illness.
• And in Columbus Alive, Scott Woods put what many in the cultural community have been worrying about into words.

Around the globe

• The International Documentary Association announced the shortlist for its awards consideration this year. Two Unorthodocs selections, Collective and Unapologetic, made the cut.
• Congratulations to Cinetracts ’20 contributor Cauleen Smith for winning the Studio Museum’s Wein Artist Prize.
• Lucrecia Martel talked about her new found-footage short.
• Sacha Baron Cohen donated $100,000 to benefit the community of Jeanise Jones, the supremely kind Oklahoma City babysitter who makes an appearance in Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm.
• Here’s an opinion on how the election could impact the future of cinemas.
• If you haven’t voted yet, here’s footage of Philadelphia voters dancing in line to get you motivated.
• Plus a visual roundup of all the recent, artist-centered get-out-the-vote projects. (One design in the “Remember What They Did” series currently fills a billboard on 4th Street in Weinland Park.)
• Law professor Brian Frye covered new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s record on arts funding. (Frye visited the Wex in 2013 for a screening of Penny Lane's doc Our Nixon, which he produced.)
• Here's what current Wex exhibiting artist Tomashi Jackson is working on now.
• There’s a new Luc Tuymans show on view virtually via David Zwirner.
• Ed Ruscha recorded a conversation with his old friend Jimmy Iovine for the Art Angle podcast.
• Hyperallergic has put out an open call for op-ed writers with informed, previously unexplored perspectives on contemporary art issues.
• There’s a new online art education program that promises a more affordable option than traditional art schools, plus respected artist instructors such as Mel Chin.
• Here’s some historical context for the COVID-prompted conversation about institutions such as the Baltimore Museum of Art deaccessioning artworks.
• Coco Fusco shared some thoughts on art making in this moment and the need for institutional change beyond statements that Black Lives Matter.
• Veteran curator Nikki Columbus makes comes to a similar conclusion in his response to the controversy surrounding the postponed Philip Guston exhibition, which is now on for 2022 instead of 2024.
• Here’s the latest on what Covid is doing to New York City museums.
• And an industry survey confirms the obvious: US theaters are worried about 2021.
• But in better news, Urban Bush Women was awarded its largest grant ever.
• The Mark Morris Dance Group is presenting a mix of past and new works for an all-virtual 40th anniversary season that began this week.
• Sun Ra left the planet but his Arkestra has a new album.
• A dispute between two Los Angeles-area neighbors over a Dale Chihuly sculpture turned ugly when one of them took the retaliatory move of blasting the theme to Gilligan’s Island on repeat.
• Scientists have created a new shade of white acrylic paint that's so blindingly white, they believe it could help combat climate change if painted on roofs and other sky-facing surfaces.
• Veteran political cartoonist Tom Toles said goodbye.
• Artist, performer, and fashion designer Frederick Weston passed away at 73.
• Lastly, no matter which way the election goes next week, Jeff Bridges, who recently went public with a cancer diagnosis, wants you to remember that we’re all in this together.