Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
America’s Oldest Choral Festival Adopts A New Artistic Model
A different festival director from a variety of artistic disciplines will be engaged each year. It is a new concept for the oldest choral...
Composer Phil Niblock, 80
Niblock made music from drones, microtones, and instruments such as cellos, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, and more. He remains best-known for the spare sounds he produced,...
Europe’s New Libraries Are Winning Fans As Community Connectors Of The Mind
For all its newfound task as “knowledge navigator and facilitator” in an increasingly complex and connected world, the library’s traditional role has also benefited...
Unfinished Video Games Can Become Big Hits
“If you want to know your game is not good, you prefer to know it as early as possible, so that you can still...
And Now: The AI Elvis Experience
"The AI generates an authentic version of Elvis, born of original material, but it allows you to do new things with him." -...
Why Is Plundered Art Still In Western Museums?
Museum professionals publish scathing books that indict the very institutions that pay their salaries. The ethics of exhibiting plundered art are called into question...
As Streaming Becomes More Like Cable TV, Cable Companies Look To Rebundle Streaming
“There’s an opportunity for cable companies to rebundle streaming services in a way that is friendly to consumers,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said. - The Wall...
Oregon’s Rural Libraries Have Become A Lifeline
“Libraries are places where people from all different backgrounds can interact,” Buzzy Nielsen, a program manager for the State Library of Oregon, said. “You see...
What If Journalism Just Went Away?
“News is no longer received consciously, but rather consumed incidentally like potato chips.” Instead of intentionally seeking news from sources dedicated to journalism, many...
Frick Collection Director To Retire After Museum Renovation Complete
Ian Wardropper, the director of New York’s Frick Collection for the past 13 years, will retire in 2025, not long after the museum unveils its long-awaited...
French President Macron Proposes Art For Notre Dame Windows. Outrage Ensues
More than 125,000 people have signed a petition decrying a proposal to replace the chapel windows designed by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859 with...
How Non-Fiction Imagines An “Audience Of Imagined Idiots”
This stance toward the reader as a peer is ultimately, I think, what differentiates good nonfiction from the dross. All the sins of lazy...
The Case For Artists Taking Political Stands
Especially in a time when trust in our political leaders and institutions continues to wane, artists, arts leaders and policymakers face daunting but critical...
Movie Piracy Is On The Rise Again. Streaming Is To Blame
After dipping in recent years, online piracy is on the rise again. And a not insignificant contingent of filmmakers and their fans believe this...
Why You Shouldn’t Count The Books You Read
Quantifying my reading, whether by titles finished, pages read, or another metric, doesn’t capture the quality of my attention to each book. - The Atlantic
Four Predictions For Media In 2024
The scariest media moments of 2023 involved watching Internet-led disruption come for familiar forms of media, like late night TV and cable systems. - WBUR
What’s Next For Those Dancing Robots? Thinking
If you look at the reaction to our robots, humanoids get 10 times the reaction to anything else. So if you care about people...
The Cookie Crumble: Google Browser Changes Help Kill Journalism Ad Business
When Chrome’s cookies are fully removed the open web will have mutated from a place where up to 90% of users were in some...
Misty Copeland Hasn’t Danced In Three Years. Is She Done With It?
"I have so many things in my life that kind of fulfil what ballet has been, and ballet is still in that: it's ...
Hundreds Of Museums Suffer Cyberattack On Their Online Collections
eMuseum, the program that allows visitors to search an institution’s archives and collections suffered in the attack, as was a program named TMS, which...
Latest US Jobs Report Shows Strong Entertainment Industry Gains After Strike
Employment in motion pictures and sound recording climbed by 11,400 jobs to 463,000. After months of declines, industry employment began rising again in November. - Deadline
Gopnik: Just What Do We Want From Comedy?
Has comedy changed dramatically in purpose in our era? Or have its ideological trappings gone pious in ways that are at odds with what...
Wolfgang Tillmans On The Cultural Impoverishment Of Brexit And Art Free Of “Purpose”
“This expectation that all artists per se should have a particular responsibility to be overtly political flies in the face of what I believe about art...
The Character Motivations Behind Giving Things Up
There is the giving up that we can admire and aspire to, and the giving up that profoundly unsettles us. What, for example, does...
Teachers Used To Be Admired In The Movies. Now They’re Flawed. Why?
"This year’s class of teacher movies is more concerned with individuals’ flaws than their knowledge-imparting skills. It could also be a reflection of the...
