"Hey, Fred!" 05/29-06/05/2024
Goings On in Columbus, OH: Available Light Season Announcement | Wexner Exhibit Opening | Parliament-Funkadelic | SUMMER614 | Spellbound: A Fabulous Poetry Brew
Theater
05/29/2024
Available Light’s 2024-25 Season Announcement
Serenity Books, 1806 W 5th Ave
May 29: 7pm
Free
Last year’s triumphant season from Available Light Theatre had three productions I praised with some version of “The best thing I’ve seen in years": Fairview (“[A] Philip K. Dick-inflected MAD Magazine special with a full Three Stooges episode nested inside about race in America, how the act of looking twists both the observer and the observed, the impossibility of truly knowing other people, and the Sisyphean quest for “Fairness,” to accomplish it and even define it”), Ghost Quartet (“[Digs] into…the way a song feels as it moves through you, and the late nights of wanting to one-up one another because you love the people you’re with so much; while still having all the insecurities and viciousness that makes us human”), and You Will Get Sick (“[A] rare blend of commentary, voice, characters and love—leavened with appropriate disgust—for the world…magnificently executed”), with the fourth production, What the Constitutition Means to Me still moving me enough to write “It’s an evening of theater I’m going to be hashing out for a long, long time; and in the short term, I’m going to be grabbing people by the lapels and saying ‘Have you seen this? You need to see this.’”
I don’t remember as perfect a season from any other company (who put on more than one show) in recent memory. Available Light continues their legacy of good parties - their former Feed Your Soul series were one of my favorite events of the year - and interesting collaborations with their announcement party at Serenity Books, about which I’ve heard countless good things recently from book-loving pals. I’ve gotten a glimpse at what’s in store - press embargoed until after the announcement - and I feel confident saying anyone blown away by this last season will walk out excited hearing what’s next.
05/31/2024
Wexner Summer 2024 Exhibitions Opening Celebration
Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St
May 31: 5 pm
Free with RSVP at https://wexarts.org/special-events/summer-2024-exhibitions-opening-celebration
The Wexner Center’s visual art program has been extremely strong lately, and I always look forward to the summer exhibits when I’m more likely to wander from my home to campus. Jonas N.T. Becker’s A Home is Not a Void focuses on and premieres some of Becker’s photography, video, sculptural, and installation pieces. For a DAMN magazine article by Robbert Roos, Becker said his work, “About the landscape as a crossing of personal identities and political systems…Landscapes might look neutral but are actually packed with meaning.”
The first solo US museum exhibition for Tanya Lukin Linklater, Inner blades of grass (soft) inner blades of grass (cured) inner blades of grass (bruised by the weather) includes Wex-commissioned work and ranges across the variety of disciplines that have made Linklater one of the most exciting artists of the last decade. For Hyperallergic, Dorian Batycka wrote, her work is “Mutually informed by relational aesthetics and institutional critique, asking viewers to consider the role of the body in the commodified space of the gallery.” A terrific talk I saw Linklater give (as part of the panel) online about a lot of the issues museums are learning to grapple with is below.
Music
05/31/2024
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic
Mershon Auditorium, 1871 N High St
May 31: 7 pm
Tickets starting at $42.50 available at https://www.schottensteincenter.com/events/detail/parliament-funkadelic-featuring-george-clinton
Legends don’t come much bigger than George Clinton and the constellation of superstars who have come through (sometimes multiple times) the ranks of his groups: Parliament, Funkadelic, Brides of Funkenstein, The P-Funk All Stars. That legend has been multiplied and magnified by everyone influenced by this work, and generations of samples and tribute. We’re still gnawing on the bones of what Parliament-Funkadelic left us to suck out the marrow.
At 82, George Clinton is still recruiting the cream of new musicians and bringing old friends into the fold, as on excellent recent albums under the vintage band monikers, Parliament’s Medicaid Fraud Dogg and Funkadelic’s First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate, and he’s got the best catalog to draw from. You never know how many more chances you’ll get to be in the presence of greatness.
06/01/2024
Summer614 at the Commons: Scarface, MC Lyte, Bobby V, 8Ball and MJG, Chrisette Michele, Ro James
Columbus Commons, 160 S High St
June 1: 3 pm Doors
Tickets Starting at $60 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/7th-annual-summer614-the-commons-tickets-776608917177
For seven years running, Summer614 has been the premier summer showcase for hip-hop and R&B fans of a certain age (let’s say around 5 years on either side of my own), and it returns with another stacked bill. Scarface, backed by a live band, brings a catalog that does thoughtfulness and raunch in equally considered measures, one of the most human bodies of work of the last 35 years of American music. 8Ball and MJG, early ambassadors for Memphis hip-hop, have three or four stone classics and a slew of great work on their other records. MC Lyte - the first woman rapper to release a full-length - also combines an enviable catalog with a well-honed stage show.
Bobby V had a string of back-to-back #1 albums in the mid-late ‘00s, and I still find myself singing along when one of those hits comes on. I remember Chrisette Michele’s debut extremely fondly, though I haven’t kept up with any of her later work. Ro James is the one act I don’t have any real familiarity with, and not mentioning or saying “Also plays” felt like a jab, but the songs I checked out while pulling this together have a nice, hazy summer jam feeling.
Poetry
Hops on High: SpellBound: A Fabulous Poetry Brew
889 N High St
June 1: 12 pm and 5 pm
Free
For all of the jokes about what Gallery Hop has turned into, it still makes space for interesting, local work, and this is an example of exactly what I hope to see more of. This month’s installment of the Short North Arts District’s Hops on High series finds them collaborating with The Poetry Cauldron, which has picked up the Writers’ Block mantle on Wednesdays at Kafe Kerouac and continued running with it with style, grace, and warmth; and SandWitch Arts, the new project/promoting/we’ll see what it grows into collaboration of two of Columbus’ greatest writers and organizers, Su Flatt and Zach Hannah. With a stacked lineup of poets spread over two shows, this is a can’t-miss.
Krista Smith MC’s the noon show, featuring poets Jessie Scrimager Galloway, Nathan Cintax, Ryan Terron Lear, and Christina Szuch. The 5 pm show has Travis Mclerking at the helm with the poets Princess, Shawn, Ophelia Lapin, and Su Flatt.