Weekend Reading: September 8 Edition

Around Ohio

• If you’re coming to our Friday night screening of Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s documentary King Coal—and even if you aren’t—you should check out this great interview with the filmmaker in Columbus Monthly.
• We’re excited to share that the Wex is a recipient of an Ohio State Energy Partners grant.
• The Pizzuti Collection has a new show on view from artist Sarah Rosalena, organized by Ohio State professor and Wex friend Kris Paulsen.
• Tuesday, a live conversation between MacArthur Fellow Hanif Abdurraqib and Pulitzer winner Connie Schultz is a short drive out of town.
• Wednesday, Hilltop’s Highland Youth Garden House is opening an exhibition with work by Kara O’Dea, Jeff Ostrowski and Karin Weston, among others.
• Thursday, the McConnell Arts Center opens a three-person show featuring work by Wex Gallery Educator Marcus Blackwell, along with Rob Jones and A.J. Vanderelli.
• Looking ahead to next weekend, you can watch a free screening Friday night of the partially animated, Oscar-nominated film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On in Goodale Park. (Disclosure: this writer is involved in that program.)
• And ICYMI, Mershon Auditorium will host the fabulous Janelle Monae Friday night.
• Saturday, you can get ahead of witchy season at Witchlab’s Arcane Alley.
• Also Saturday, Hayley Gallery opens a two-person show with Mary Burkhardt and Briden Schueren.

Around the Globe

• Brazilian arts and culture is seeing a resurgence following the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency. (Related, Wex Executive Director Gaëtane Verna is currently checking out Bienal de São Paolo.)
• Booths with works by Cathy Lu and Stephanie Syjuco made the cut in this opinion piece on the top highlights of this weekend’s Armory Show. If you’d like to know more about Syjuco, there’s this virtual talk with the artist from 2020.
• Applications are now open for the 2024–25 fellowship program through the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
• A street artist is under fire for whitewashing the work of his peers on the building that housed Jean-Michel Basquiat’s studio. The artist claims it’s a tribute to a work that’s shown at the Wex, Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing (except Rauschenberg asked for de Kooning’s permission).
• MoMA was singled out as an institution whose curation is embracing the age of data.
• The spirit of filmmaker and activist Sarah Maldoror, the subject of our winter 2024 exhibition Tricontinental Cinema, presided over the Venice Film Festival’s Women in Film roundtable.
• Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things led the list of awards winners at the Venice Film Fest.
• Disney has pivoted in its lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to control development around the entertainment behemoth’s Orlando theme park by focusing on the First Amendment.
• The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is living up to its name lately.
• Here’s an update on the Oscar prospects for Best Animated Feature.
• In another sign of the slow recovery from COVID for nonprofit performing arts companies, Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre announced major layoffs.
• The New York Times ran a piece in praise of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.
• In a creative approach to first-year orientation, Wesleyan University invited Urban Bush Women to lead a collaborative dance with incoming students.
• Not to be outdone, 30,000 high school students from over 100 schools in Sweden will participated in a collective dance as a statement against suicide.
• This week, we’ll leave you with something light: New Yorker contributor Dan Mahboubian Rosen addressing the challenges of breaking up with someone in an art museum.