Weekend reading: October 9 edition

Around Columbus

• Glass Axis is celebrating decorative gourd season with its annual pumpkin sale.
• Artist Lisa McLymont has a new show at Secret Studio featuring portraits of Wex Artist Residency Award recipient Sharon Udoh and Patron Services staffer/go-to DJ Dorian Ham.
• Black Art in the Park brings a celebration of art and diversity to Goodale Park Saturday afternoon, including vendors like fiber maker Jaquita Sealey and performers such as Kendra Spencer and Lyrikal Goddess.
• Columbus Flea has a Baby Flea happening behind Dough Mama in Clintonville for the next several Sundays.
• Actors Theatre kicks off a beginner’s workshop for aspiring costume designers starting Thursday. 
• Southern Ohio Screenwriters is holding its Horror Film Festival in-person with limited seating at Grandview Theater & Drafthouse Thursday.
• If you missed the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus virtual reception last weekend with special guest Bill Watterson, video is now available to view online.
• And in breaking news, the Wex is joining next Friday’s The Big Table, now hosted virtually by The Columbus Foundation. We’ll share more details on our social feeds.

Around the globe

• Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson talked about her acclaimed new doc Dick Johnson is Dead on Fresh Air. (Johnson will be participating in this year’s Unorthodocs fest, btw.)
• As Regal Theaters closes, the future prospects for AMC Theaters look dire, and small theaters beg for federal assistance, Wired wonders if the moviegoing experience can come back better than before.
• The California dance organization Disco Riot is sharing several short dance films online as part of a program centered around democracy, voting, and election rights.
• Netflix is facing criminal charges in Texas for promoting Maïmouna Doucouré’s powerful and controversial film Cuties.
• The great cinematographer and Martin Scorsese collaborator Michael Chapman has passed away at the age of 84.
• Animation fans, check out this list of the most influential scenes in the medium’s history, from a George Méliès sequence to Bambi Meets Godzilla.
• The COVID-19 pandemic appears to be having an effect on people’s musical taste.
• Choreographer Jérôme Bel spoke about “drastic change” in the dance world over 2020.
• There’s a new play from New York-based Telephonic Literary Union and Woolly Mammoth Theater Company that’s accessible by telephone.
• Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki’s SITI Company announced that its 2022 season will be its last.
• The Edinburgh International Festival has been ordered by the Scottish government to diversify its programming.
• The MacArthur Genius Grant winners for 2020 include speculative fiction writer N.K. Jemisin and documentarian Nanfu Wang.
• Art Matters also announced its 2020 grant recipients, including Dread Scott and theater artist Charlotte Brathwaite.
• Black artists seeing success in their careers, such as Theaster Gates and Titus Kaphar, are creating spaces and opportunities to support the next generation of makers.
• American museums are taking advantage of COVID-relaxed rules around selling art from their collections.
• There’s been curatorial upheaval at The Guggenheim this week.
• Museums are rethinking their spaces for a post-COVID future.
• Marina Abramović is doing the same for performance art.
• The Mellon Foundation is committing $250 million to a nationwide monuments project to “transform the way our country’s histories are told in public spaces.”
• The Supreme Court has validated the argument that street art has value.
• Lastly, here’s a timely piece on the symbolism of flies in art history.