Camille Okhio: "What’s on Our Cultural Calendar This August"

August is the perfect month to unplug. From the lucky Europeans who take off the whole month as habit to the somewhat-less-lucky Americans who can squeeze a week or two out for summer vacation, this is the time of year to slow down, rest, and look at life a bit more closely. And what deserves a closer look than truly great art? Below we have pulled together a list of our favorite shows on view this month.

Eric N. Mack’s All the Oohs, and the Aahs at the Wexner Center for the Arts
Columbus, Ohio

Eric N. Mack is a quiet titan. His practice is boundless and boundaryless, birthing works and installations that require a reset of the mind. His paintings span space, stretching across walls and halls, over canopies and lobbies, rounding corners, intersecting light and space. On August 22 the multidisciplinary Wexner Center for the Arts will open a solo exhibition of the artist’s work, spanning the last 13 years of Mack’s career. One room-sized work, Landlord (2021), stretches between two walls, with vibrantly hued, died, and patterned textiles hanging, stretching, and reaching for armatures that jut outward like a Whirling Dervish, mid whirl. Mack’s fabric collage meets and overlaps at different points, umbrellas and flagpoles standing in for the timber framing of a traditional canvas. With references as wide-ranging as Abstract Expressionism and Misa Hylton-Brim (the forever iconic stylist of Lil Kim), All the Oohs, and the Aahs does exactly as it promises: elicits emotion and surprise, provids visitors with the reminder to not just look up and down, forward and behind, but all around. Mack’s practice weaves together the beauty and force of the living world in a form entirely his own. On view through January 11, 2026. –Camille Okhio