ROUND-UP July 17-28, 2019

• "'The Psychology of Time Travel' Is Anything But Simple." PopMatters, July 17, 2019.

"As humorously debated in the Russo Brothers' Avengers: Endgame (2019) and borne out by hundreds of previous time travel stories, part of the fun is in the world-building of moving through time. What are the rules? What are the pitfalls? Will stepping on a butterfly lead to a fascist dictatorship millions of years later? [...] Mascarenhas takes a more thematic approach: the focus in The Psychology of Time Travel is on the effects jumping around in time has on people and their relationships, and the instabilities of trust and identity that can result."

• "[Review:] Pokémon: Detective Pikachu." Moviejawn, July 22, 2019.

"It’s just these little touches of maximum effort (oops, wrong Ryan Reynolds movie!) that make Detective Pikachu as strong as it is—that, and, of course, Ryan Reynolds’ energetic, generous voice acting. A talking Pikachu with the voice of Deadpool should not be as absolutely adorable as it is, and yet here we are."

• "How Do You Curate Stonewall At 50?" Filthy Dreams, July 24, 2019.

"If you run a Google search for “Stonewall exhibition,” you will find dozens upon dozens of arts and historical venues across the United States that put together shows related (with varying degrees of specificity) to the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. In Philadelphia, Stonewall is being commemorated at Drexel University’s Pearlstein Gallery, in a show of sixty Philadelphia-area queer artists. Aesthetically and thematically, Stonewall @ 50 is best described as a hodgepodge, perhaps intentionally reflecting the DIY-ness of underground queer aesthetics. There are no themes or groups of works cordoned off and/or explicated with wall text; there’s no timeline or educational aspect of what these works are responding to in American queer history. You either go into Stonewall @ 50 knowing about the Stonewall Uprising or you don’t, and as a result, the show’s efficacy is circumscribed by how much of queer history and aesthetics you are familiar with."

• "ABOLITION NOW!" at Asian Arts Initiative examines racism and mass incarceration in America." Philly Artblog, July 28, 2019.

"While the exhibition features instances of Asian American incarceration in the United States, the overall goal is to present a larger pattern of incarceration that implicates white supremacy in the United States, and how that philosophy manifests in the oppression of people of color. Milestones and hallmarks of American incarceration are presented in red text on the white walls, creating themed sections of the exhibition that tackle: the institution of African-American slavery; the 1940s Japanese-American internments; the prison management system and its transition from government ownership to private prisons run by multi-national corporations (dubbed the prison industrial complex); to the current concentration camp conditions for Central American refugees and immigrants dotting the Mexican border. ABOLITION NOW!’s strength as an artistic and political statement lies in how the artists and activists themselves make connections between these historical modes of incarceration and contemporary practices."