March/April 2020 Calendar

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WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS | THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | 1871 NORTH HIGH STREET | COLUMBUS, OHIO 43210-1393

NON-PROFIT ORG U S POSTAGE P A I D COLUMBUS OHIO PERMIT NO 711

03+04 2020 MARCH+APRIL 2020

Thank You for Coming: Space Faye Driscoll artist residency award project

ON STAGE APR 16–19

onStage

JAZZ

Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die SAT, MAR 14 | 8 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE $16 members $19 general public $13 students Catch avant-garde trumpeter and composer Jaimie Branch and band on the heels of Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise, recently featured among the top 10 records of NPR’s 2019 Jazz Critics Poll.

A fitting reflection of our collective struggle to cope with today’s confusing political landscape, Fly or Die II evokes a complex spectrum of feeling, ranging from fiery, righteous anger to grooving, buoyant playfulness. Building on the success of the critically acclaimed Fly or Die (2017) and featuring many of the same musicians, the new record sees Branch experimenting with vocal expression for the first time. As she states in its liner notes, “so much beauty lies in the abstract of instrumental music, but being this ain’t a particularly beautiful time, I’ve chosen a more literal path. The voice is good for that.”

“A funny, joyous, and twisting journey of sense to nonsense and back to sense again.”

—EXEUNT MAGAZINE

Annie Dorsen Yesterday Tomorrow FRI, MAR 20 | 8 pm SAT, MAR 21 | 2 & 8 pm SUN, MAR 22 | 2 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE $21 members $24 general public $13 students Take an unpredictable musical theater journey with Yesterday Tomorrow as three vocalists sight-read an algorithmically generated score that always takes a different path from “Yesterday” by the Beatles to “Tomorrow” from Annie.

For the past decade, director and writer Annie Dorsen has engaged with what she calls “algorithmic theater”—exploring how reality is shaped not just by computers, but by the complex logic that drives such technology. While the progression between the two songs in Yesterday Tomorrow is driven by software, the resulting work is resolutely human. As Dorsen noted in BOMB Magazine, “the whole thing is, of course, about the present moment of performance…[where] all of our storytelling, and all of our imagination, and our daydreams and fears and anxieties and regrets are being experienced.” Dorsen was recently named a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation, and the Wex is a proud co-commissioner of her recent project The Slow Room (2018).

Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) TUE, APR 14 | 8 pm MERSHON AUDITORIUM $21 members $24 general public $13 students Just over 30 years after the artist’s death, Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography still has the capacity to intrigue, seduce, shock, and scare us—sometimes all at once. In Triptych (Eyes of One on Another), a piece co-commissioned by the Wexner Center, an amazing collaborative team asks the audience to experience these reactions collectively.

Through original music by The National’s Bryce Dessner, libretto by korde arrington tuttle, direction by Kaneza Schaal, poetry by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith, and vocals by Roomful of Teeth, this evening-length work puts the audience inside Mapplethorpe’s viewfinder and his beautiful, bold vision of how we see, feel, hurt, and love one another.

Mapplethorpe’s pictures continue to both unite and divide, and this provocative, interdisciplinary work offers the perfect opportunity to consider the perceived opposites the artist sought to challenge: black/white, male/female, gay/ straight, art/porn, classical/contemporary.

Please note: this performance contains mature content.

Composed by Bryce Dessner Libretto by korde arrington tuttle Featuring words by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith Directed by Kaneza Schaal Featuring Roomful of Teeth with Alicia Hall Moran and Isaiah Robinson Contributing choreography and performance by Martell Ruffin Produced by ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann in cooperation with The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

Wexner Center members at the Patron level and above ($250+) are eligible for two free tickets to Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) while supplies last.

Contact our ticket office at (614) 292-3535 or stop by the Patron Services Desk to claim your spot. Please have your member card or number handy. Not a member? Join today at wexarts.org/join.

artist residency award project

Faye Driscoll Thank You for Coming: Space

THU–SAT, APR 16–18 | 8 pm SUN, APR 19 | 2 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE $21 members $24 general public $13 students The final installment of her Wex-supported movement trilogy, Faye Driscoll’s intimate performance Thank You for Coming: Space is a shared, liberating ritual that confronts life’s final flourishing.

Alone with the audience, the Bessie Award–winning performance-maker constructs a temporary world in Space that’s upheld by pulleys, ropes, and the weight of others to invoke sensations of absence. Like the other critically acclaimed works in Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming series—Attendance (2014) and Play (2016)—Space extends performance’s sphere of influence to create a communal arena where every movement, sensation, and interaction is heightened, made palpable, and questioned. At its center is the human body: self-contained, built for action, and driven by its longing for the world.

Thank You for Coming: Space was supported through a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award. Thank You for Coming: Attendance was presented at the Wexner Center in 2016. Thank You for Coming: Play, supported by an Artist Residency Award, premiered at Wexner Center in 2016.

TICKETS.WEXARTS.ORG

ACCESSIBILITY

THE BAR IS OPEN

Tickets for performing arts events are on sale at tickets.wexarts.org and the Patron Services Desk on the entrance level of the building.

Please contact Patron Services Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at hmarshall@wexarts.org or (614) 688-3890 with questions about accessibility and ADA-related accommodations for any event.

Arrive early before evening performances at the Wex to enjoy a beverage with friends.

THIS SPREAD CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT JAIMIE BRANCH Photo: Dawid Laskowski TRIPTYCH (EYES OF ONE ON ANOTHER) THANK YOU FOR COMING: SPACE YESTERDAY TOMORROW Photos: Maria Baranova

onView

THROUGH APRIL 26

Sadie Benning: Pain Thing Sadie Benning became well-known in the early 1990s for making brilliant low-tech videos—urgent and moving confessionals documenting their own teenaged sensibility. For most of the current decade, they’ve concentrated on gallery-based projects, often using found photographic imagery as the base material for works that ultimately combine elements of sculpture and painting into a unique hybrid. For 2020, Benning returns to the Wex with a new work of striking scale and ambition.

Pain Thing is a single installation consisting of 63 small wood panels grouped into 19 discrete and separately titled sequences that extend through three adjacent spaces. Acrylic paint and photo transparencies are layered on each panel, followed by coats of meticulously applied clear resin. The overall result complicates the relationship between flatness and dimensionality while raising questions of narrative and memory, specifically in relation to traumatic and collectively inherited events.

Benning’s work has been shown at the Wex since the early 1990s. The recipient of a 2003 Artist Residency Award, they presented Suspended Animation, their first-ever solo gallery exhibition, here in 2007.

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Curator at Large Bill Horrigan.

LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze Visual artist LaToya Ruby Frazier turns her camera toward Lordstown, Ohio, and the workers of its General Motors plant in The Last Cruze, a deeply personal investigation of labor, class, community, and family. After more than 50 years of production and a commitment to manufacture the Chevrolet Cruze until 2021, the facility was officially unallocated by GM and stopped production in March 2019. Frazier collaborated with the members of UAW Local 1112 and their families to document the profound uncertainty and upheaval caused as the plant ceased production.

Presented for the first time in Ohio, The Last Cruze features over 60 photographs and other audiovisual elements—as well as the last automobile from the GM Lordstown Complex itself—in an installation that visually echoes the plant’s floating assembly line. With this latest body of work, Frazier introduces a major new chapter in her ongoing accounts of working-class lives in a variety of geographic settings. Confronting the disruption of an entire community, The Last Cruze creates a platform for the people of Lordstown as they articulate their own relationships to an urgent subject that connects local, national, and global concerns.

Organized by The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and curated by Karsten Lund and Solveig Øvstebø. The exhibition is supported by Mirja and Ted Haffner, The Hartfield Foundation, the David C. & Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul, and Mary Frances Budig and John Hass. The Wexner Center’s presentation is coordinated by Senior Curator of Exhibitions Michael Goodson and Chief Operating Officer Megan Cavanaugh.

Stanya Kahn: No Go Backs Making its world premiere in this solo exhibition, interdisciplinary artist Stanya Kahn’s allegorical short film No Go Backs follows teens who renounce the bleak world they’re set to inherit to seek a brave new way forward.

Shot on Super 16mm film and created with the support of a residency in the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio, No Go Backs observes the teenagers as they flee the untenable infrastructure of the city for the mountains, only partially prepared to survive. The intensely visceral, highly compressed film immerses viewers in fragments of their journey that unfolds in a haze of adolescent distraction, malaise, and ultimately wonderment. Known for experimental videos that commingle fiction, reality, and autobiography, Kahn visited the Wex in April 2018 to present her celebrated film Stand in the Stream (2011–17).

Kahn’s animations that use marks, motifs, and characters from her paintings are also on view in our lower lobby.

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Associate Curator Lucy I. Zimmerman.

FREE RELATED EVENTS PAIN THING RELATED PERFORMANCES

La Neve

THU, MAR 12 | 6 pm

Empath THU, APR 23 | 6 pm GALLERIES FREE for all audiences Join us for musical performances programmed in the spirit of the band Le Tigre, whose influential debut featured Sadie Benning as a principal member.

Please note: performances (approx. 30 mins. each) are standing-room only.

Walk-In Tours SUN, MAR 1 | 1 pm SAT, MAR 7 | 1 & 3 pm SAT, APR 4 | 1 pm SAT, APR 18 | 6 pm SUN, APR 26 | 1 pm MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE with gallery admission Make the most of your visit to the galleries with a guided walk-in tour led by knowledgeable Wexner Center docents. Tours are free with gallery admission, which is free on Thursday evenings and on the first Sunday of every month.

Select foreign-language tours are available.

Contact (614) 292-6493 or edweb@wexarts.org for details.

See the next page for more exhibition-related talks, tours, and lectures.

EXHIBITIONS GALLERY ADMISSION

FREE members, college students (with valid ID), patrons under 18, active military and veterans, and union members $9 general public $7 seniors (55 and older)

Ohio State faculty and staff (with BuckID) Exhibitions tickets are on sale at tickets.wexarts.org and at the Patron Services Desk on the entrance level of the building.

FREE ADMISSION

Every Thursday 4–8 pm and on the first Sunday of each month. Admission to the galleries is also free with the purchase of a same-day film or performing arts ticket.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

See a full list of gallery guidelines at wexarts.org.

#theWex @WEXARTS EXHIBITION SUPPORT

C ARDINAL HEALTH

inSight

FREE EXHIBITION-RELATED EVENTS See the onView pages and wexarts.org for more about our current exhibitions.

LECTURE

CURATOR TOUR

Kevin Boyle

Michael Goodson

FACULTY GALLERY TALK

Jared Thorne

Shutdown: Lordstown and the American Dream

Our Deepest Humanity: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Works with People

Do We Still Need Unions?

WED, MAR 4 | 5:30 pm

THU, MAR 19 | 6 pm

FILM/VIDEO THEATER FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

There was a time when factories like General Motors’ Lordstown Complex gave ordinary people the opportunity to secure for themselves and their families a share of the American dream.

Now many of those facilities have been shut down, as have the opportunities they created.

This lecture by Kevin Boyle, William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University, will explore what’s been lost in the decimation of our nation’s industrial core—and what ordinary people might do to restore the dreams that once flourished there.

This tour led by the Wexner Center’s Senior Curator of Exhibitions Michael Goodson connects LaToya Ruby Frazier’s exhibition The Last Cruze with the artist’s previous work with the people of Flint, Michigan (Flint is Family, 2016), the miners of Borinage, Belgium (And From the Coaltips a Tree Will Rise, 2016/2017), and the people of her hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania (Campaign For Braddock Hospital, 2011). Goodson, who helped oversee the presentation of The Last Cruze at the Wex, discusses a practice that is more about building relationships than simply documenting events.

CURATOR TALK

FACULTY GALLERY TALK

Lucy Zimmerman and Jennifer Lange From Studio to Screen

Liz Roberts

Stanya Kahn’s “No Go Backs”: A conversation for college students

THU, APR 9 | 6 pm

WED, APR 15 | 5:30 pm

MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE for college students with valid ID (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

Join the Wexner Center’s Associate Curator of Exhibitions Lucy Zimmerman and Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange for a talk on the center’s Film/Video Studio program—in the studio itself! They’ll share behind-the-scenes insights on the making of Stanya Kahn’s new short No Go Backs (2020) that was supported by a Film/Video Studio residency and discuss other artists who’ve recently been working in the acclaimed postproduction facility.

College and university students interested in filmmaking are invited to explore Stanya Kahn’s new short No Go Backs (2020) and their own work and ideas in this gallery talk with interdisciplinary artist and Ohio State Department of Art lecturer Liz Roberts. Topics will include climate activism, speculative filmmaking, slow cinema, working with no dialogue, creating mood, and how sound influences a viewer’s psychological state.

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Richard Trumka with LaToya Ruby Frazier, David Green, and Timothy O’Hara

WED, APR 1 | 1 pm

Contemplate the role of unions in our society and the exhibition LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze with Jared Thorne, assistant professor in Ohio State’s Department of Art. Thorne will ask us to consider the legacies of unions and their potential as a bridge to equality for the future. Exhibited internationally, Thorne’s own work speaks to issues of identity and subjectivity as they relate to class and race in America and abroad.

FACULTY GALLERY TALK

Mindi Rhoades

Stumbling Through the Pain THU, APR 16 | 1 pm MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org) Take a divergent, interactive tour through artist Sadie Benning’s exhibition Pain Thing with Mindi Rhoades, associate professor in Ohio State’s Department of Teaching and Learning. Using Benning’s images as provocation, evidence, and guide, we’ll explore questions around narrative, memory, connection, and loss, and consider what it might mean to apply Benning’s processes to our own image-memories and experiences. We’ll also consider Benning’s use of qualities like transparency, opacity, nesting, and layering as visual metaphors and tools.

ART & RESILIENCE

MON, MAR 30 | 7 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org—space is limited) Join us for a special event featuring AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, visual artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, and current and former UAW Local 1112 Presidents Timothy O’Hara and David Green. Following a welcome from and remarks

by President Trumka, students and community members will launch into a roundtable discussion on the significance of unions in the 21st century, building bridges with the next generation to motivate action and understanding, and other topics. Open to the public, the event encourages active audience discussion and participation.

The galleries, including Frazier’s compelling exhibition The Last Cruze, and the Wexner Center Store will be open 5–10 pm on March 30 for you to explore. RSVP now—space is limited!

Can’t make it? The event will be livestreamed at wexarts.org/live.

THIS PAGE FROM TOP LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER: THE LAST CRUZE Installation view at the Wexner Center Photo: Katie Gentry RICHARD TRUMKA Photo courtesy of the AFL-CIO

ON PAUSE WORKSHOP Photo: Rachel Joy Baransi

On Pause WED, MAR 4–APR 1 | noon–1 pm MEET AT THE GALLERY ENTRANCE FREE with gallery admission Join us for a creative infusion of art and meditation in our galleries at this ongoing collaboration with Replenish: The Spa Co-op.

Press pause in the middle of your busy week to observe art, focus inward, and enjoy healthy conversation with members of the community.

Discussion and meditation instruction will take place at the beginning of each session, but you can drop in at any time during the hour. Each workshop gathers at the gallery entrance and travels to the meditation location in the galleries at noon. Participants arriving later will be guided to our location by staff. Cushions are provided.

FOR FAMILIES

PERFORMANCE

Cahoots NI

Penguins

SAT, MAR 7 | 10 am & 4 pm BLACK BOX ON MERSHON STAGE $10 general public $8 members $5 students and children

Wex Wide Open Art Studio SAT, MAR 7 | 10 am–4 pm MERSHON LOBBY FREE for all audiences Join artist Tala Kanani in Mershon Auditorium’s lobby before, during, and after the performance of Cahoots NI’s Penguins for an all-ages, hands-on arts experience. Among other activities like Mad Libs and making 2-D animal faces out of textiles, we’ll create and adorn a soft, “plushie” handheld creature you can take home.

In this wonderful introduction to contemporary dance for young audiences, Irish company Cahoots NI explores the true tale of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted and raised a baby chick.

After swimming and playing together happily, the two penguins set up a nest and tried to hatch a rock. An attentive zookeeper brought them an egg that needed fostering and the two friends became real parents. Initially reported in the New York Times, this story has been the subject of multiple picture books exploring themes of love, acceptance, and family. Bring your young children and enjoy original music, an ingenious set, and engaging choreography in a child-friendly environment.

Family Studio: Slow Art Day SAT, APR 4 | 11 am–3 pm CAFÉ FREE for all audiences Join artist Jonna Twigg for an all-ages, communal book-binding workshop that fosters introspection and imagination, expression and action. By gathering paper, waxing thread, and stitching together materials, the quiet-butactive process of binding a book can be a way of fine-tuning our senses to the tactile world. The process calls attention to our need to find focus while at the same time revealing the enjoyment that comes from making something and experiencing the fullness of uncluttered time.

This workshop invites participants of all ages and abilities into an environment that allows them to be expressive and successful. Each person will have the opportunity to choose their covers and binding thread and work with hand tools to craft their book.

This sensory-friendly and wordless performance (42 mins., no intermission) is recommended for children 3 and older.

Penguins is supported by Culture Ireland and is coproduced

by Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Prime Theatre.

Special thanks to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

FOR TEENS

WexLab: Film/Video Workshop with Liz Roberts

SAT, MAR 14 | noon–4 pm CAFÉ FREE for youth ages 13–18 (registration required at wexarts.org) Please join us for a free workshop in the Wexner Center’s renowned Film/Video Studio with interdisciplinary artist Liz Roberts. We’ll provide equipment and supplies for each participant to use for the afternoon. Bring your questions and ideas to work on (for example, a journal with your storyboards, sketches, or scripts).

Beginning in the café at noon, the workshop will also include an opportunity to view and discuss work in the galleries, including Stanya Kahn’s short film No Go Backs.

Free pizza and snacks will be available during WexLab workshops while supplies last. Questions? Contact (614) 292-6493 or edweb@wexarts.org.

WexLab: Songwriting Workshop

Pages Open Mic WED, APR 29 | 5:30–7 pm

with Sharon Udoh of Counterfeit Madison

CAFÉ FREE for all audiences

SAT, APR 25 | noon–4 pm

Everyone’s invited to celebrate the participants of Pages, the Wexner Center’s innovative literacy and writing program for Columbus-area high school students. Hear from this year’s students as they share the prose, poetry, and visual art they’ve created in response to cutting-edge exhibitions, films, and performances at the Wex. We’ll also unveil this year’s Pages publication at the event.

CAFÉ FREE for youth ages 13–18 (registration required at wexarts.org) Aspiring pop stars, don’t miss this free workshop with musician, vocalist, and songwriter Sharon Udoh of Counterfeit Madison, who describes her music as “melodic, raucous, ridiculous, soulful, gentle, theatrical rock and roll, with a bit of classical and gospel.” All supplies will be provided, including a journal for each participant to use during the workshop and to take home afterward. Bring your song ideas to work on and your favorite portable instrument (acoustic or tech device) if it helps you create. The workshop will include an opportunity to share your songs with each other, family, and friends.

2019–20 participating schools: Big Walnut High School, Briggs High School, Franklin Heights High School, Walnut Ridge High School, West Liberty-Salem High School, Westerville South High School, and Whitehall-Yearling High School.

THIS PAGE FROM TOP PENGUINS Top and inset photos: Robert Day courtesy of Cahoots NI

LIZ ROBERTS (left) with WexLab participants Photo: Ada Matusiewicz

WEX WIDE OPEN ACTIVITIES Inset photos from top: Dionne Custer Edwards, Miriam Nordine

SHARON UDOH Photo: Kate Sweeney

JONNA TWIGG (right) leads a book-binding workshop Photo: Sarah-Jannat Sabiti

PAGES OPEN MIC Photo: Katie Gentry

EX

exhibitions

PP

public programs

FV

film/video

ME membership PA

performing arts

ST

store

◯

free events

Find out more at wexarts.org Read complete event descriptions and updates, buy tickets, and view trailers.

Sun

Mon

Tue

2

Mar

FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT ◯ Ohio Shorts Call for Entries

Submissions due today at wexarts.org/ohioshorts

9

onView

HEIRLOOM CAFÉ CLOSED FOR SPRING BREAK MARCH 9–13

IN THE GALLERIES THROUGH APRIL 26

Stanya Kahn: No Go Backs Sadie Benning: Pain Thing LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze Admission is free Thursday evenings and the first Sunday of each month.

See the onView pages for details.

The Box

Free for all audiences MARCH

Mati Diop Atlantiques APRIL

Jeanne Liotta Crosswalk

Store

22 PA THEATER

Start your morning off with a bagel and coffee, then enjoy the fresh taste of spring with Heirloom’s salads and wraps, featuring locally grown vegetables and herbs. With items added throughout the month, there’s something new to enjoy each week!

Heirloom is open Monday–Friday, 8 am–4 pm; until 7 pm March 31–April 2 for Banff; and closed for spring break March 9–13.

Walk-In Tours

The Wex is open to all guests! If you have an accessibility question regarding your upcoming visit, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at (614) 688-3890 or hmarshall@wexarts.org.

35MM PRINT DOUBLE FEATURE

Film/Video Theater

30 PP ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ◯ Richard Trumka

Apr

with LaToya Ruby Frazier, David Green, and Timothy O’Hara Performance Space | 7 pm

31 FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

5

PP COSPONSORED SCREENING AND TALK ◯ Eric Bednarski in person

Warsaw: A City Divided

Film/Video Theater | 1 pm

14 PA INTERDISCIPLINARY

Triptych (Eyes of One on Another)

Mershon Auditorium | 8 pm

Know Before You Go

Accessibility

Chop Shop | 7 pm Goodbye Solo | 8:40 pm

Performance Space | 2 pm

Make the most of your visit to the galleries with a guided walk-in tour led by Wexner Center docents on March 1 and 7, and April 4, 18, and 26, free with gallery admission. See the onView pages for details.

Visit wexarts.org for up-to-date information about parking, construction, and traffic near the Wex. See the back page for the center’s fall hours.

FV VISITING FILMMAKER: RAMIN BAHRANI

Annie Dorsen Yesterday Tomorrow

Browse our acclaimed selection of jewelry, housewares, and gifts you won’t find anywhere else, plus catalogues on Sadie Benning, Stanya Kahn, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and other artists featured in our galleries. Shop online any time at store.wexarts.org.

Heirloom Café

24

19 PA DANCE

Faye Driscoll Thank You for Coming: Space Performance Space | 2 pm

26 EX LAST DAY TO SEE THE EXHIBITIONS

Galleries | 11 am–6 pm

Wed 4 PP ART & RESILIENCE ◯ On Pause

Meet at the gallery entrance | noon PP LECTURE ◯ Kevin Boyle

Thu 5 PP ARTIST TALK ◯ Liz Magic Laser

Film/Video Theater | 4:30 pm FV VISITING FILMMAKER: RAMIN BAHRANI

Shutdown: Lordstown and the American Dream

Man Push Cart

Film/Video Theater | 5:30 pm

Ramin Bahrani in person

Fri 6 FV RETROSPECTIVE: AGNÈS VARDA

Cléo from 5 to 7 Preceded by Diary of a Pregnant Woman

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

35MM PRINT

Sat 7 PP FOR FAMILIES

Wex Wide Open Art Studio Mershon Lobby | 10 am–4 pm

PP FOR FAMILIES

Cahoots NI Penguins

Black Box on Mershon Stage 10 am & 4 pm

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

FV RETROSPECTIVE: AGNÈS VARDA

The Gleaners and I | 7 pm The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later | 8:30 pm DOUBLE FEATURE

Film/Video Theater

11 PP ART & RESILIENCE ◯ On Pause

Meet at the gallery entrance | noon

12

14

EX PAIN THING RELATED PERFORMANCES ◯ La Neve

PP FOR TEENS ◯ WexLab: Film/Video

Workshop with Liz Roberts

Galleries | 6 pm

Café | noon–4 pm

FV RETROSPECTIVE: AGNÈS VARDA

PA JAZZ

Vagabond Preceded by Ulysse

Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die

Performance Space | 8 pm

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

18 PP ART & RESILIENCE ◯ On Pause

Meet at the gallery entrance | noon PP COSPONSORED EVENT ◯ Art+Feminism Wikipedia

Edit-a-thon

Fine Arts Library | noon–4 pm

19 PP CURATOR TOUR ◯ Michael Goodson

Our Deepest Humanity Meet at the gallery entrance | 6 pm FV SPECULATIVE AFRICA

I Am Not a Witch

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT ◯ DigiEYE

20 FV SPECULATIVE AFRICA

Atlantics introduced by Namwali Serpell

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

Book signing Wexner Center Store | 6 pm PA THEATER

Annie Dorsen Yesterday Tomorrow

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

Performance Space | 8 pm

21 FV SPECULATIVE AFRICA

Crumbs Preceded by Pumzi

Film/Video Theater | 2 pm PA THEATER

Annie Dorsen Yesterday Tomorrow Performance Space | 2 & 8 pm

FV READING AND BOOK SIGNING

Namwali Serpell and Saeed Jones

Two Dollar Radio HQ | 6 pm 1124 Parsons Avenue

25 PP ART & RESILIENCE ◯ On Pause

Meet at the gallery entrance | noon PP COSPONSORED EVENT ◯ Mad Royal Film Festival 2020

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm Reception | 6 pm

26 PP READING AND BOOK SIGNING ◯ William Evans

We Inherit What the Fires Left Wexner Center Store | 6–8 pm Reception follows FV RETROSPECTIVE: AGNÈS VARDA

Mur murs | 7 pm Documenteur | 8:30 pm

27 FV READING AND SCREENING ◯ Robert Elder and Matt Kish

discuss Moby-Dick: Illustrated

by Gilbert Wilson Preceded by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick Film/Video Theater | 7 pm Book signing follows

DOUBLE FEATURE

1 Meet at the gallery entrance | noon PP FACULTY GALLERY TALK ◯ Jared Thorne

2 FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

3 PP COSPONSORED EVENT ◯ Ohio Prison Arts Connection

Statewide Conference

Performance Space | 9 am–5 pm FV DOCUMENTARY

Slay the Dragon

Do We Still Need Unions?

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm Conversation with David Niven and Daniel P. Tokaji follows

Meet at the gallery entrance | 1 pm

FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

9 PP CURATOR TALK ◯ Lucy Zimmerman

and Jennifer Lange From Studio to Screen

FV READING AND SCREENING ◯ The Grand Budapest Hotel

Film/Video Theater | 4 pm

Reception

Lower Lobby | 5:30 pm Annie Atkins presents Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking Film/Video Theater | 7 pm Book signing follows

Film/Video Theater

PP ART & RESILIENCE ◯ On Pause

28

10 FV CONTEMPORARY SCREEN

Bacurau

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

4 PP FOR FAMILIES ◯ Family Studio: Slow Art Day

Café | 11 am–3 pm FV DOCUMENTARY

Slay the Dragon

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

11 FV CONTEMPORARY SCREEN

Bacurau

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm

Meet at the gallery entrance | 6 pm

15 PP FACULTY GALLERY TALK FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS ◯ Liz Roberts

Stanya Kahn’s “No Go Backs” Meet at the gallery entrance 5:30 pm FV READING AND BOOK SIGNING ◯ Derf Backderf discusses

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio

16 PP FACULTY GALLERY TALK ◯ Mindi Rhoades

Stumbling Through the Pain Meet at the gallery entrance | 1 pm PA DANCE

Faye Driscoll Thank You for Coming: Space Performance Space | 8 pm

17 PA DANCE

Faye Driscoll Thank You for Coming: Space Performance Space | 8 pm

18 FV SPECIAL FILM EVENT

Ohio Shorts 2020

Film/Video Theater | 7 pm PA DANCE

Faye Driscoll Thank You for Coming: Space Performance Space | 8 pm

Reception | 6:30–7:30 pm Film/Video Theater | 7:30 pm Book signing follows

23 EX PAIN THING RELATED PERFORMANCES ◯ Empath

Galleries | 6 pm

25 PP FOR TEENS ◯ WexLab: Songwriting

Workshop with Sharon Udoh

Café | noon–4 pm

29 PP FOR TEENS ◯ Pages Open Mic

Café | 5:30–7 pm

INTO THE CANYON (Pete McBride, Amanda Pollak, 2019) Image courtesy of the filmmakers

inSight ARTIST TALK

Liz Magic Laser THU, MAR 5 | 4:30 pm FILM/VIDEO THEATER FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org) Hear from New York–based multimedia artist Liz Magic Laser in this talk that explores how her latest work is addressing the contemporary drive to maximize human performance. Laser’s recent projects have involved applying a realitytelevision format to explore the gig economy (In Real Life, 2019); using personality-assessment techniques to unravel sociopolitical tensions (Handle/Poignée, 2018); and conducting a workshop that employs new age, biohacking, and corporate training practices (User Friendly, 2019).

COSPONSORED EVENTS

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Mad Royal Film Festival 2020

WED, MAR 18 | noon–4 pm

WED, MAR 25 | 7 pm

FINE ARTS LIBRARY FREE for all audiences

FILM/VIDEO THEATER Reception | 6 pm FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

Join the Wex Student Engagement Group, University Libraries, and Office of Student Life Multicultural Center for an inclusive one-day event dedicated to improving coverage of gender, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia.

Everyone’s welcome, and no Wikipedia editing experience is necessary!

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Office of Student Life Multicultural Center and University Libraries.

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Department of Art’s Living Culture Initiative and Visiting Artists and Scholars Committee.

See what the up-and-coming filmmakers of Ohio State’s Mad Royal Film Society have been up to at the group’s second-annual festival featuring a variety of bite-sized, 1–12 minute shorts. Connect with the university’s film community, enjoy refreshments ahead of the screening at 6 pm in the café, and view the work of tomorrow’s directors! Films will be judged by faculty in Ohio State’s Film Studies Program and awards will be presented at the end of the evening. (program approx. 90 mins.)

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Mad Royal Film Society, Film Studies Program, and Department of Theatre.

READING + BOOK SIGNING Ohio Prison Arts Connection Statewide Conference FRI, APR 3 | 9 am–5 pm

SCREENING AND DISCUSSION

Eric Bednarski in person

Warsaw: A City Divided (2019) SUN, APR 5 | 1 pm FILM/VIDEO THEATER FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org)

PERFORMANCE SPACE FREE for all audiences (RSVP requested at wexarts.org) Returned citizens, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction staff, teaching artists, community members, and people who work in reentry and mental health are all welcome to join us for the Ohio Prison Arts Connection’s third statewide gathering. The daylong event is part working meeting to advance the big possibilities in front of us and part symposium to help us all support the wellness of justice-involved Ohioans.

Cosponsored by the Ohio Arts Council, Otterbein University, Healing Broken Circles, Returning Artists Guild, Music and Theatre Association, Justice Arts Coalition, and William James Association.

In 1941, soon after the Nazis created Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto, a Polish amateur 8mm camera enthusiast shot a remarkable 10-minute film from both sides of the ghetto walls. This neverbefore-seen footage is woven into the featurelength documentary Warsaw: A City Divided, which also explores the wartime division of the city and tragic murder of its inhabitants through interviews with ghetto survivors and witnesses as well as architects, urban historians, and the Chief Rabbi of Poland. Eric Bednarski, the film’s award-winning director, joins us for a Q&A session and discussion after the screening. (71 mins., DCP) Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Center for Slavic and East European Studies through its Polish Studies Initiative, Department of History, Melton Center for Jewish Studies, and Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures.

William Evans

We Inherit What the Fires Left

THU, MAR 26 | 6–8 pm WEXNER CENTER STORE Reception follows FREE for all audiences Join us for the Midwest launch of awardwinning poet William Evans’s powerful new collection We Inherit What the Fires Left, which explores the lived experience of race in the American suburbs and what dreams and injuries are passed from generation to generation. The evening features a reading

by Evans followed by a book signing and reception; copies of the book are available for purchase in the store. Evans is also cofounder of the pop culture website Black Nerd Problems.

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LIZ MAGIC LASER Handle / Poignée, 2018 Performance and video installation, 14:21 mins. Commissioned by Centre Pompidou, Paris, for MOVE 2018 Exhibition of Dance, Performance, Moving Image. Top and middle images courtesy Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam.

WE INHERIT WHAT THE FIRES LEFT Cover image courtesy of Simon & Schuster ERIC BEDNARSKI Photo: Jacek Pioro WILLIAM EVANS Image courtesy of the artist

onScreen READINGS AND MORE

Robert Elder and Matt Kish discuss

Derf Backderf discusses

Moby-Dick: Illustrated

by Gilbert Wilson

WED, APR 15 | 7:30 pm

FRI, MAR 27 | 7 pm

Book signing follows Reception | 6:30–7:30 pm FREE with tickets

Preceded by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (Jerry Winters, 1954)

Book signing follows FREE with tickets Hailed as “a brilliant artist and one of America’s foremost painters” by filmmaker John Huston, Gilbert Wilson (1907–91) is best known for a series of large-scale murals, including one at nearby Antioch College, that champion progressive causes and depict the plight of the common man. Wilson was obsessed with Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick, serving as an assistant to famed Moby-Dick illustrator Rockwell Kent and eventually producing a series of his own paintings inspired by the book that in turn influenced Huston’s film adaptation in 1956.

The new book Moby-Dick: Illustrated by Gilbert Wilson explores the artist’s obsession with never-before-published paintings and notes on the novel, all drawn from Wilson’s estate. The volume’s editor, Robert Elder, will be joined in conversation by Ohio artist Matt Kish, creator of Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page (2011). The conversation will be preceded by the short film Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (30 mins., digital video), and a signing in the Wexner Center Store follows the event. (program approx. 75 mins.)

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio

Best-selling cartoonist and Ohio State alum Derf Backderf returns to the Wex with his extraordinary new work, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard shot and killed unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University.

The event was burned into our national memory, including that of Backderf, who was 10 years old at the time. Using techniques similar to those employed in creating his graphic novels My Friend Dahmer (2012) and Trashed (2015), Backderf conducted extensive research to the explore the young lives lost that day and the series of events that led up to the tragedy—a story that remains relevant today.

Join us for a reception with Derf in the lower lobby (6:30–7:30 pm) featuring a special guest announcement for the 2020 Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival in October. A book signing follows the reading in the Wexner Center Store.

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and Cartoon Crossroads Columbus.

Image courtesy of Abrams ComicArts

Image courtesy of Hat & Beard

Annie Atkins presents

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking

SAT, MAR 28 | 7 pm Reception | 5:30 pm Book signing follows the program $8 members, students, and seniors $10 general public Maps, invitations, and train tickets may not catch a viewer’s eye the way costumes, makeup, and special effects do, yet they serve an equally vital role in adding authenticity to a film’s fictional world. Based in Ireland, Annie Atkins has contributed graphic design and props to such notable films as Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015), and the Laika film The Boxtrolls (2014). Atkins will give us a guided tour of the design elements she has contributed to these films and more as showcased in her engaging new book Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps (Phaidon).

Photo courtesy of Annie Atkins/Phaidon

“Annie makes the unreal seem hyperreal, and the real more supremely alive and utterly magical.”

Greet Atkins at a small reception in the center’s lower lobby at 5:30 pm. A signing in the Wexner Center Store follows the program. Purchase a book and ticket together and save $5 off the book’s retail price. Visit wexarts.org for details.

—JEFF GOLDBLUM

Cinema tickets from Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes, 2017) designed by Annie Atkins.

Photo: Flora Fricker, courtesy of Amazon Content Services LLC.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

SAT, MAR 28 | 4 pm FREE with tickets Filled with examples of Atkins’s masterful designs, The Grand Budapest Hotel follows the story of Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the legendary concierge of a luxury hotel in the fictional country of Zubrowka. Anderson and Atkins set his evolving friendship with lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) and the cast of eccentrics that populate the hotel in an eye-popping, fully realized world that exists sometime between the World Wars. (100 mins., DCP) Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight

onScreen

SPECULATIVE AFRICA

CURATED BY NAMWALI SERPELL Join us for this three-evening series of African films exploring the fluid genre of speculative fiction—encompassing elements of science fiction, horror, and fantasy—guest curated by author Namwali Serpell. Her own speculative epic The Old Drift (2019) was selected as one of the year’s notable books by the likes of the New York Times and NPR, with author Salman Rushdie calling it “a dazzling debut, establishing…a writer on the world stage.”

In addition to introducing Atlantics on March 20, Serpell joins author Saeed Jones in conversation at Two Dollar Radio HQ (1124 Parsons Avenue) on March 21 at 6 pm. Visit wexarts.org/SerpellJones for details!

I Am Not a Witch

Atlantics

THU, MAR 19 | 7 pm

introduced by Namwali Serpell

(Miguel Llansó, 2015) Preceded by Pumzi (Breath, Wanuri Kahiu, 2009)

FRI, MAR 20 | 7 pm

SAT, MAR 21 | 2 pm

Book signing | 6 pm

Set against stunning Ethiopian landscapes, Crumbs follows the postapocalyptic journey of a scrap collector, Gagano, who’s had enough of scavenging through the crumbs of a decayed civilization. When a long-dormant spaceship hovering overhead awakens, Gagano has to overcome his fears to discover things aren’t quite the way he thought. (68 mins., DCP) From the director of Rafiki comes Pumzi, Kenya’s first science fiction film. Set 35 years after a world war fought over water, it follows a botanist who strives to reach the “dead zone” with a plant that she’s been nurturing. (21 mins., digital video)

(Rungano Nyoni, 2017)

I Am Not a Witch, the often humorous, slyly feminist debut feature by writer-director Rungano Nyoni, tells the story of an eightyear-old Zambian girl accused of sorcery after a minor accident occurs in her presence. The child is sent to a “witch camp,” where similarly accused women in her region are held captive and forced to perform manual labor, act as tourist attractions, and even use their “power” as needed. (93 mins., DCP) SPECULATIVE AFRICA FROM TOP PUMZI Image courtesy of the artist I AM NOT A WITCH Inset and image at bottom courtesy of Film Movement ATLANTICS Image courtesy of Netflix CRUMBS Image courtesy of IndiePix

CONTEMPORARY SCREEN

Image courtesy of Kino Lorber

Bacurau

(Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019)

FRI–SAT, APR 10–11 | 7 pm The dystopian sci-fi western Bacurau follows Teresa (Bárbara Colen), a young woman who returns to her rural hometown in Brazil for her mother’s funeral. Once home, she realizes the government has removed her village from all maps and that its citizens are being sold as prey to a foreign safari company (whose leader is played by cult legend Udo Kier!). This incendiary parable about the exploitation of Brazil’s most vulnerable people is the latest feature by past visiting filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho. (132 mins., DCP)

(Atlantique, Mati Diop, 2019)

Atlantics, actress and filmmaker Mati Diop’s debut feature as director, ranks among the most exhilarating pictures of recent years. The drama follows Ada and Souleiman, a young couple in Dakar, who are separated when Souleiman crosses the ocean with friends. But instead of becoming the expected story about migration, the film stays with Ada and becomes a genre-bending look at love beyond time while addressing issues of class, power, and gender. A cinematic experience that begs to be seen on the big screen, Atlantics won the 2019 Grand Prix at Cannes. (105 mins., DCP) Come early for a book signing with Serpell starting at 6 pm in the Wexner Center Store.

Crumbs

“Encompassing genres from Afrofuturism to surrealism to zombie flick, these films bend representation. They warp both the reality effect of the camera and the demand to represent the ‘real’ Africa—or its stereotyped mythology. Mocking this anthropological gaze, the films of Speculative Africa instead invoke the roots of ‘speculate’: to imagine, to risk, to look otherwise.”

—NAMWALI SERPELL

Image courtesy of Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Toronto

MARCH Mati Diop

Atlantiques (2009) FREE for all audiences

VISITING FILMMAKER

Ramin Bahrani

Catch two evenings of films by the man Roger Ebert called “the director of the decade,” Ramin Bahrani. In addition to the works featured in this program, the Iranian American writer and filmmaker is the force behind 99 Homes (2014) and Fahrenheit 451 (2018). The recipient of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Prize for Goodbye Solo, Bahrani introduces his acclaimed feature Man Push Cart on March 5.

Three young Senegalese men sit around a bonfire in Dakar at night, one describing his experience of trying to cross the ocean to Spain. As they reflect on his dangerous journey, light plays across their faces, and everything hangs in suspension.

Melancholic and mysterious, the awardwinning nonfiction short elegantly addresses the perils of illegal migration— and also serves as a terrific teaser for Diop’s debut feature Atlantics, screening March 20 as part of the series Speculative Africa. (15 mins., video.)

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Migration, Mobility, and Immobility Project, funded by the Global Arts & Humanities Discovery Theme; the Department of Theatre; and Film Studies Program.

Image courtesy of the artist

APRIL Jeanne Liotta

Crosswalk (2010) FREE for all audiences

Ramin Bahrani in person Man Push Cart (2005) 35MM PRINT

THU, MAR 5 | 7 pm $7 members and seniors $9 general public FREE for students

“A potent mood piece.”

—JONATHAN ROSENBAUM, CHICAGO READER

In Man Push Cart, a Pakistani immigrant tries to make a better life for himself by selling coffee and bagels from his food cart in midtown Manhattan while also hoping to break into the New York music scene. Just as his life turns in a promising direction, a catastrophic event sends him reeling. (87 mins., 35mm)

DOUBLE FEATURE

Chop Shop (2007) | 7 pm Goodbye Solo (2008) | 8:40 pm

35MM PRINT

TUE, MAR 24 $7 members and seniors $9 general public FREE for students Chop Shop follows a young Latino boy living on the streets of Queens, New York. Desperate for work, he lands a job at an auto repair shop and finds his sister a job at a nearby food truck. They also skirt the law—he steals hubcaps, she turns tricks at a truck stop—trying to save for their own food truck and the chance to escape life on the margins. (84 mins., digital video) In Goodbye Solo, an improbable friendship is formed between a Senegalese taxi driver in Winston-Salem named Solo, and William, a depressed “good ol’ boy” whose best days have passed. As they spend more time together (and William asks for a one-way ride to a steep natural landmark) a mutual respect is formed, framing two very different versions of the American dream. (91 mins., 35mm)

“Ramin Bahrani is the new great American director. After three films, each a masterwork, he has established himself as a gifted, confident filmmaker with ideas that involve who and where we are at this time. His films pay great attention to ordinary lives that are not so ordinary at all.”

“Nuyo-realism” from the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Crosswalk is a place-portrait in sound and image that’s shot at the stylistic intersection of home movie and cinema verité. Filmed on consecutive Good Fridays, the short work highlights the hybrid collage of peoples, cultures, and performances that characterizes daily life in the LES. Crosswalk was made with support from the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio residency program. (19 mins., video)

FILM/VIDEO T ICK ET INF O

$7 members and seniors $9 general public $5 students Film/Video tickets are on sale at tickets.wexarts.org and the Patron Services Desk on the entrance level of the building. In-person ticket sales continue until a half-hour after show times or until the start of the second film of double features.

SCREENINGS

All events are in the Film/Video Theater, unless otherwise indicated. Non-English language films have English subtitles, unless otherwise indicated. All programs are subject to change.

VISITING FILMMAKERS

Today’s most interesting directors, screenwriters, and film industry professionals visit the Wex in person to introduce select screenings year-round, with Q&A sessions following most presentations.

Check the onScreen listings in this calendar and on wexarts.org for a complete schedule.

DOUBLE FEATURES

One ticket to our double features admits you to either film (or both). Feel free to join us just for the second film at the time listed.

—ROGER EBERT, 2009

RAMIN BAHRANI FROM TOP CHOP SHOP MAN PUSH CART Images courtesy of the artist

GOODBYE SOLO Image courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Film lives here. #filmliveshere

onScreen

CLASSICS

RETROSPECTIVE:

AGNÈS VARDA

In recent years, Agnès Varda has become something of a meme: a cute grandmother who shows up as a cardboard cutout at the Oscars, as famous for her iconic hair as her films. But as the elegies following her death last year have reminded us, Varda has created one of cinema’s most singular, empathetic, and curiosity-filled bodies of work.

This small retrospective provides a glimpse of her career and interests, which range from kickstarting the French New Wave to making documentary/fiction hybrids long before it was a global trend. Viva Varda!

“So far ahead of the world of cinema that she had to wait for it to catch up to her.”

Cléo from 5 to 7

(Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962) Preceded by Diary of a Pregnant Woman (L’opéra-mouffe, 1958)

FRI, MAR 6 | 7 pm Among the most enduring works of the French New Wave, Cléo from 5 to 7 follows a coquettish cabaret singer in real time as she awaits the results of a troubling medical test. Fueled by a memorable score from Michel Legrand, the film serves as a portrait of Paris in the early 1960s as much as it does a minute-to-minute account of Cléo’s unpredictable emotions.

(89 mins., DCP) The early short Diary of a Pregnant Woman conveys the impressions of an expecting mother as she observes her Parisian neighborhood. (17 mins., DCP)

—NEW YORKER

Slay the Dragon

Vagabond

(Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance, 2019)

(Sans toit ni loi, 1985) Preceded by Ulysse (1982)

FRI–SAT, APR 3–4 | 7 pm

THU, MAR 12 | 7 pm

Conversation follows the April 3 screening A chilling and invigorating look at one of the most crucial issues facing our democracy, Slay the Dragon examines the consequences of gerrymandering—the practice of redrawing voting district lines to ensure the dominance of one political party in future elections. While it might sound like the driest of subjects, this vital film makes direct connections between the practice and the Flint water crisis, gender-binary bathroom bills, systemic racism, and voter ID laws. (101 mins., DCP) After Friday’s screening, scholars David Niven (University of Cincinnati) and Daniel P. Tokaji (Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law) will take the stage for a conversation about gerrymandering issues in Ohio from statewide as well as national perspectives.

(Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000)

The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later | 8:30 pm

(Les glaneurs et la glaneuse… deux ans après, 2002)

SAT, MAR 7 One of the defining documentaries of the past 20 years, The Gleaners and I follows Varda through France as she investigates the world of “glaneurs”—those who survive by gathering the food left behind by farmers after harvest.

Addressing issues of poverty, conservation, and the curious place of scavenging in French history and culture, The Gleaners and I is a perfect realization of the way Varda “mov[ed] through the world with the tools of her trade” (Roger Ebert). (82 mins., DCP) The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later finds Varda revisiting some of the subjects from her landmark documentary as well as seeking out fans who had sent her letters about the film. She also ruminates on the decision to insert herself into Gleaners, offering insights into her creative process. (62 mins., DCP)

DOCUMENTARY

Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

DOUBLE FEATURE

The Gleaners and I | 7 pm

“In Vagabond, Varda has given the disenfranchised a podium; Bonnaire has given them poetry.”

—THE GLOBE AND MAIL (UK)

Sandrine Bonnaire won the César Award for Best Actress for her searing portrayal of the defiant drifter Mona, found frozen to death in a ditch at the beginning of Vagabond. Varda pieces together Mona’s story through flashbacks told by those who encountered her, producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman.

(105 mins., DCP) The captivating short Ulysse sees Varda reexamining a photo she took three decades earlier, producing a range of thoughts on memory, history, and time. (21 mins., DCP) RETROSPECTIVE: AGNÈS VARDA FROM TOP CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7 THE GLEANERS AND I VAGABOND MUR MURS Images courtesy of Janus Films

DOUBLE FEATURE

Mur murs (1981) | 7 pm Documenteur (1981) | 8:30 pm

THU, MAR 26 Varda brought an astute, outsider’s perspective to these two companion films made in and about Los Angeles. Though quite different in tone, the pair are complexly interwoven with overlapping images and ideas.

Among her richest nonfiction films, Mur murs looks at LA’s convoluted social, racial, and economic tensions through the lens of the city’s vast array of outdoor murals. (82 mins., DCP) While in LA during a separation from her husband Jacques Demy, Varda made Documenteur, a small-scale fiction about a divorced mother and her child (played by Varda and Demy’s own son) leading a quiet existence on the city’s margins. (65 mins., DCP)

SPECIAL EVENTS

DigiEYE WED, MAR 18 | 7 pm

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour

FREE with tickets

TUE–THU, MAR 31–APR 2 | 7 pm

We’re excited to join once again with Ohio State’s Department of Theatre to present DigiEYE, an evening of new digital media works by students from the university’s Departments of Theatre, Art, and Dance, as well as its Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. The screening of narrative, documentary, animated, and experimental shorts is free and open to the public. Visit wexarts.org for a complete program lineup. (program approx. 90 mins., video)

$11 members, students, and seniors $15 general public

Curated by Janet Parrott, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theatre at Ohio State.

2020

ADMISSION TO ALL THREE PROGRAMS $27 members, students, and seniors $39 general public

SAT, APR 18 | 7 pm

The annual Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour presents the most creative and inspiring examples of outdoor adventure filmmaking from around the world. This year, we’re again presenting three entirely different programs over three nights. Visit wexarts.org for each night’s complete lineup.

Only a few tickets remain as of press time—but you don’t have to miss out next year. Become a Wexner Center member today to enjoy priority access to tickets for Banff and other can’t-miss events. Sign up at wexarts.org/join, watch for our seasonal member ticket presales, and make sure to snag your tickets early!

Copresented with Columbus Outdoor Pursuits and Ohio State’s Department of Recreational Sports and its Outdoor Adventure Center.

$5 all audiences Celebrate our vibrant culture of local and regional filmmaking with the center’s 24th-annual festival of Ohio-made short films.

All entries are produced in the Buckeye State and span documentary, animation, dramatic narrative, and everything in between. Join us for a postscreening reception with the filmmakers in the lower lobby, where we’ll announce the evening’s jury award and audience award winners.

SPECIAL EVENTS FROM TOP INTO THE CANYON (Pete McBride, Amanda Pollak, 2019) Image courtesy of the filmmakers COVE (ILLEGAL ALIEN) (Ryan Wise, 2019) Image courtesy of the artist

SURFER DAN (Tim Kemple, Camp4 Collective, 2018) Image courtesy of TK Merrell

Your Wex Permission to be different

The founder of Matrix Psychological Services and an Ohio State alum, Dr. Kurt Malkoff has been a supporter of the Wex for nearly three decades. Kurt says that he and his wife Leslie “both look forward to every new exhibition.”

For Kurt, the Wex is one of the key assets that makes our city special: “The philosophy of disparate curation (some edgy, some traditional) in photography, painting, performance, mixed media, and film has given Columbus permission to be a little bit different!”

Photo: Katie Gentry

NOT A MEMBER? JOIN NOW! Online:

wexarts.org/join

In person:

at the Patron Services Desk or Wexner Center Store

By phone: (614) 292-1777

Dig into spring with this Louise Bourgeois Gardener’s Apron and Tool Set! Shop online anytime at store.wexarts.org

Hours Galleries

Calendar of Events Published 6 times a year Volume 32, Number 2 March+April 2020 Store

(614) 292-1807

Tickets + Info

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Information Visiting the Wexner Center L o c at i o n The Wexner Center for the Arts is located on the campus of Ohio State University at the corner of High Street and 15th Avenue. Off-site locations for other Wexner Center events are noted throughout this calendar/newsletter.

Parking Parking is available in the Ohio Union Garages on campus and at the South Campus Gateway Garage, located one block east of North High Street between 9th and 11th Avenues. Very limited, shortterm parking is available at the parking meters in front of Mershon Auditorium. c h e c k f o r u p d at e s Check wexarts.org or call (614) 292-3535 for updates. All programs are subject to change.

Galleries Please note that the Wexner Center galleries are closed Mondays and between exhibitions. See the exhibitions pages for a current schedule.

Tickets Purchase tickets at tickets.wexarts.org or from the Patron Services Desk (614) 292-3535 on the entrance level of the Wexner Center.

Ticketing services for sales and pickup of prepaid tickets are available at event locations one hour prior to showtimes.

Film/Video tickets are available until a half-hour after showtimes or until the start of the second film of double features. (Sorry, no refunds or exchanges for Wexner Center tickets, unless an event is canceled.)

All ticket prices include the 5% Columbus Arts & Culture Fee. o h i o s tat e s t u d e n t s All Ohio State University students receive benefits including free gallery admission and discounts in the Wexner Center Store and on films and performing arts events.

Check out the schedules in the calendar and on the website! r e n ta l s Mershon Auditorium and selected Wexner Center spaces are available for meetings, gatherings, and other functions. See wexarts.org for details.

Tours group tours Prearranged group tours are available to school, youth, and college/university audiences, as well as adult community groups. These hour-long tours can be tailored to many different interests.

Please make reservations for all group tours at least three weeks in advance.

Call the education department at (614) 292-6493.

walk-in tours Walk-in Tours require no advance reservations. These tours feature highlights of the current exhibitions.

See the current schedule inside this calendar.

ON THE COVER: FAYE DRISCOLL Thank You for Coming: Space Photo: Gema Galiana

Wexner Center Support The Wexner Center for the Arts is part of The Ohio State University and receives major institutional support from the university.

Wexner Center Foundation Leslie H. Wexner Chair Michael V. Drake, MD Vice Chair Bill Lambert President Trustees David M. Aronowitz Lisa M. Barton Jeni Britton Bauer Shelley Bird Johanna Burton David J. Campisi Brenda J. Drake Adam R. Flatto Russell Gertmenian Michael Glimcher Brett Kaufman Elizabeth P. Kessler C. Robert Kidder Nancy Kramer Mark D. Kvamme Ronald A. Pizzuti Joyce Shenk Alex Shumate Abigail S. Wexner Sue Zazon Ex Officio Gretchen Ritter Bruce A. McPheron Bruce A. Soll Mark E. Vannatta

Senior Programming Staff Johanna Burton Director Megan Cavanaugh Chief Operating Officer Lane Czaplinski Director of Performing Arts David Filipi Director of Film/Video Michael Goodson Senior Curator of Exhibitions Bill Horrigan Curator at Large Jennifer Lange Curator of Film/Video Studio Program Calendar of Events Staff Mary Abowd Associate Editor Emma Clute Graduate Associate Michael Greenler Freelance Graphic Designer Sylke Krell Assistant Director of Marketing/Communications Kendall Markley Graphic Designer Erik Pepple Chief Communications Officer Ryan Shafer Publications Editor