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Weekend Reading: January 17 Edition

Melissa Starker, Creative Content & PR Manager

Jan 17, 2025

Sepia-toned photo of a white-haired man as he looks down at the electric guitar across his chest.

Top of page: David Lynch, courtesy of the Lynch Foundation (via Facebook); photo: Dean Hurley

Around Columbus

A man stands facing the camera with his fist extended straight forward and center, like he’s throwing a punch.

Chuck D, courtesy of Ohio State Office of Diversity and Inclusion

Wex Marketing Project Manager Adin Sadic is among the Ohio State staffers featuring in a new Urban Arts Space show opening this weekend.
Monday, Ohio History Connection has a wealth of events planned for MLK Day.
Also Monday, Community Grounds is leading an MLK Day of Service.
Tuesday, TRANSIT ARTS has an open mic at Central Community House.
Thursday, the Ohio Union hosts the 53rd MLK Celebration, featuring a talk by the one and only Chuck D.
Also Thursday, Capital University’s Schumacher Gallery has an opening reception for a show of sports photography by Walter Iooss Jr.
And at McConnell Arts Center, there’s a reception Thursday for the new shows from The Returning Artists Guild and Kirsta Niemie Bendetti.
Current Wex guest curator Scott Woods kicked off his new series of columns for Matter with a clear-eyed overview of the arts in Columbus.
Travis Hoewischer was named the new director of Franklinton Arts District.
Reports of the death of Skylab were, fortunately, premature.
Local artist Daric Gill shared a BTS video on the interactive sound sculpture he’s created with help from honeybees.
The latest Fright Club list, focused on horrible homecomings, includes a link to a new short by Columbus filmmaker Derek Stewart.
Omaha NPR affiliate KIOS-FM spoke to artist and Ohio State professor Carmen Winant about her traveling exhibition The last safe abortion.
Love Dolly Parton? Now you can have her adorn your car on a state-sanctioned charity license plate.
The call for entries is now open for the Hilliard Short Film Festival.
And don’t forget, now’s also the time to submit for the 2025 Ohio Shorts program.
Looking ahead to next weekend, Urban Arts Space offers a dance performance by Mansee Singhi Friday night.
Wonderball is Saturday at the Columbus Museum of Art.
And Hayley Gallery hosts an opening of a group show with all of its 30 gallery artists Saturday evening.
On a sadder note, community activist, nonprofit leader, and chess advocate Ernest Levert, Jr. passed away last week at the age of 34.

Around the Globe

Head shot of a woman with glasses and shoulder-length white hair.

Wex Head of Exhibitions Julieta González

Wednesday evening, our own Head of Exhibitions Julieta González is the focus of a virtual curatorial talk presented by the School of the Visual Arts New York.
If you missed our recent presentation of Gary Hustwit’s generative doc Eno, or if you just want more of it, Hustwit has created a 24-hour streaming experience around the film that kicks off next Friday at noon EST.
Here’s the latest on artists impacted by the Los Angeles fires.
Here’s a running list of resources to help artists impacted by the fires.
And here’s a look at efforts to save the Getty Villa.
As online chatter calls out the similarities between California’s current fires and the events in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the Pasadena-based Octavia’s Bookshelf responded to the emergency by transforming itself into a mutual aid center for its neighborhood.
The Grammys will go on as planned despite the conflagration.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is also planning to stay on track for the Oscars.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof explained how he shot his Oscar frontrunner in secret.
This weekend, Sing Sing will become the first film to be released simultaneously in theaters and prisons nationwide.
A new partnership is bringing some Shudder streaming exclusives to physical media, including Jennifer Reeder’s 2023 thriller Perpetrator.
Adrien Brody shared the experience of working on The Brutalist.
Here’s some handicapping of this year’s BAFTA nominees.
Ben Stiller discussed his work on Severance ahead of this weekend’s season two premiere.
Is this two-minute short created by AI the future of filmmaking, as some are claiming?
Artist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi refused the French legion d’honneur.
LaToya Ruby Frazier told Artforum all about her tribute to the community health workers of Baltimore.
Artnet asked, will the art world go “post-woke” in 2025?
A new book reveals the history of propaganda art.
The photography of Sally Mann is under fire, again.
A new study suggests that dancing can help with depression from Parkinson’s Disease.
The National Dance Project is ending, but its organizers say it’s really just being reimagined.
The allegations of sexual impropriety against writer Neil Gaiman got a lot uglier.
With help from some admirers, The Guardian wrote a mash note to The New York Dolls 50 years after the groundbreaking band called it quits.
Hey, whatever happened to REM?
Veteran British actor Joan Plowright passed away at the age of 95.
Cinematographer Roger Pratt died at 77.
Singular artist, filmmaker, and countercultural icon David Lynch died at the age of 78. Many news sources responded with tributes from Lynch’s colleagues, lists of where to stream Lynch’s films, and videos of Lynch discussing his work including an Artforum interview on his life and art, a Nowness profile cocreated by Lynch’s son Austin, and a CBS Sunday Morning interview about Lynch’s Transcendental Meditation practice.
To honor that practice, Lynch’s children called for a worldwide, 10-minute global meditation session Monday, starting at noon PST. Wherever you are, feel free to join in.
And to honor his work, the Criterion Channel is offering a free stream of the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life through the end of January.