Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Tom Lehrer Is A Biting Satirist And Still Alive At 96. So Why Did...
Was it because, as a child mathematics prodigy, he wanted to fulfil his real vocation and become a great mathematician? Apparently not. He taught...
Investigation: 1000 Damien Hirst Works Weren’t Made When He Said They Were
At least 1,000 paintings that the artist Damien Hirst said were “made in 2016” were created several years later, the Guardian can reveal. - The Guardian
After Decades Of Being Youth-Obsessed, TV Gets Comfortable With The Old
Most people watching TV are older than those groups. Among cable channels, the median age for TNT and Bravo viewers is 56, for HGTV...
How A Denver Performing Arts Center Thrives On Free Shows And Community Trust
With more than 40 free shows this season, and only 10 that charge for tickets, Levitt has built trust and audiences through a highly...
A Short History Of Over-The-Top Art World Feuds
Here are four more beefs between art-world honchos, spanning from the ‘50s to the aughts, that are, regardless of when they took place, truly...
Opera Australia Posts A $4.9 Million Deficit
Marking the milestone of 50 years of performing at the Sydney Opera House in 2023, OA presented 30 productions: 14 operas, 13 concerts and...
Public Radio’s Foundation Is Leaking. Some Real Planning Is In Order
Just like with the plumbing in our house, public radio can’t wait any longer to take action on the leaks in its foundation. They...
Diversity Problem: Few UK Arts Workers Come From The Working Class
While 23% of the UK workforce is from a working-class background, working-class people are underrepresented in every area of arts and culture. They make...
Study: Are AI Large Language Models Developing Theory Of Mind?
What defines us as humans is the concept of theory of mind: the ability to track other people’s mental states. Large language models (LLMs)...
What Our Inner Voices Tell Us
For psychologists and other researchers, inner speech presents a puzzle – it’s a huge part of our lives, yet so difficult to study. After...
How Roulette Became New York’s Music Lab
Pursuing an aesthetic guided as much by John Coltrane as by John Cage, Roulette became a crucial laboratory for the downtown-music scene, providing artists...
How Copyright Has Killed Music (Except For Taylor Swift)
If giving people money encourages them to create, then surely giving them more money would encourage them to create more music, right? The answer...
Christie’s Auction Sale Has Good Night, Despite Cyber Attack
It was a "reassuringly solid result of $346.5m ($413.3m with fees) from its Modern evening sale—within its pre-sale estimate of $340m-$493.5m (calculated without fees)."...
A Year After Its “Year Of Culture” Honors, Leeds’ Arts Scene Is Collapsing
Last year, the city of Leeds held a year-long celebration of culture. This year, however, artists and creatives in the West Yorkshire city are being...
How Grantmakers Can Support Artists Of Color
Historical ideas of what constitutes arts and culture and the roots of racial injustice are being re-examined, and these investments mark a step in...
Broadway Is More Expensive Than Ever. But Where Are The Audiences?
It feels a bit like the Roaring '20s - appropriate since the current Broadway season also features a musical adaptation of "The Great Gatsby."...
Why We’re Still Having Difficulty Adjusting To Hybrid Work
On the one hand, a reduction in the number of work-related commutes is good for the environment. On the other, entire days spent on...
What’s It Mean To Live In A Virtual Community? Look To The Real Cities...
Misinformation graffiti is going to haunt me. But, cities, over time, learned how to deal with those problems to make cities more livable—but the...
The End Of Giant Music Festivals?
2024 will also be known as the true beginning of the end of mega-live music festival culture with the unexciting two weekends of Coachella...
Was The 1960 Venice Biennale Rigged To Choose Rauschenberg?
“Taking Venice” doesn’t take a position on whether dishonest mischief sullied the jury’s process of choosing Rauschenberg, although it does leave the appropriate sense...
What King Charles’ First Portrait Is Meant To Convey About Him
It’s worth putting this into the context of “self-fashioning” in portraiture, succinctly described by the literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt in 1980 as a process where identity...
Will Machines Replace Us? Naw — We Colonize A Different Space
This is simultaneously a misplaced conceit and misconceived fear: There are varied environmental niches to exploit and to dominate even in ecosystems with an...
The Line Between Fine Art And Craft Is Blurring
In many ways, it is obvious that furniture could be a direct expression of human thoughts and feelings. There is its closeness to the...
How Gian Carlo Menotti And Carlisle Floyd Defined Mid-20th Century Opera
As a composer, Menotti was consigned to the bittersweet status described by Somerset Maugham to characterize his own fiction—“in the first rank of the...
Corruption Roils China’s Top Music Conservatories
The public nature of Xue’s allegations has shaken the classical music world in China. And while these allegations are unproven, they highlight structural issues...
