Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Why Frederick Wiseman Was The All-Time Best Documentary-Maker
Between 1967 and 2023, he made forty-seven features (nearly one a year), many of them running considerably more than two hours. His body of...
How Consolidation Has Wrecked Publishing
Here’s the problem: Those Big Five control over 80% of the trade publishing market. Indie publishers exist, but they need more support—a lot more...
Judy Chicago Walks Away From “Nightmare” Google Project
The celebrated visual artist Judy Chicago has walked away from a major commission at Google’s headquarters project in the Loop, comparing an aspect of...
If The UK’s Biggest Institutions Are Struggling, There’s A Structural Problem
If the National Gallery – one of Britain’s leading attractions with over 4 million visitors a year – is struggling to balance its books, it indicates wider structural problems...
Russia Produces Great Artists. Why Not Great Science?
Russia produces world‑class artists and brilliant scientific inventors, yet few globally successful technologies. Why? - Nightingale Sonata
CBS’ Attempted Censorship Of Colbert Backfires Spectacularly – 10X Online Views As Typical Ratings
CBS lawyers tried to block Stephen Colbert’s interview with Texas legislator James Talarico, but Colbert posted it online instead—where it exploded, drawing far more...
Technical and Facility Director
The Technical and Facility Director leads the technical operations for the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.
Stephen Colbert Says CBS Censored Talarico Interview On His Late Night Show
Colbert said that CBS lawyers had told him “in no uncertain terms” that an interview he had planned for Monday’s show with State Representative...
Michael Silverblatt, A Radio Interviewer Who Really Knew His Subjects’ Work, Dies At 73
Michael Silverblatt, the longtime host of the KCRW radio show "Bookworm" — known for interviews of authors so in depth that they sometimes left...
In Australia, Arts Education Enrollment Is Plummeting
A comprehensive review of national data shows a steady decline in arts subject enrolments at senior secondary level and a parallel contraction of creative arts degree...
The Anatomy Of (Enduring) Class Struggle
Despite years of Eat-the-Rich–type discourse, we seem to struggle with how money and power operate without falling into either conspiratorial exaggeration (the fantasy of...
Arguments For Why People Are Worthwhile
When we speak of dignity, worth, or the respect owed to persons, we are not engaging in idle abstraction. These concepts do real work....
Why Do We Have An Instinctive Attraction To Music?
People have relished music for so long that we have evidence, from forty thousand years ago, of humans making a flute-like instrument out of...
How Universities Became Centers Of Liberal Thought
In the past thirty or so years, the academy has replaced the church as the center of the liberal moral imagination, providing the sense...
The Cultural Debate About Wall Texts
“When curators withhold information about the works and the artists, they are reinforcing their own curatorial approach, which is a contradiction. Decontextualizing and dehistoricizing...
What Musical Variations Can Teach Us About Divergent Creativity
It’s hard to imagine creativity without divergent thinking. How are you being exploratory? How are you being adventurous? A theme and variations is a...
America’s Post-Modernist Architecture Legacy
Postmodernism began as a critique of modernism's exhausted promises. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many designers no longer treated modernism as radical or socially...
Louvre Discovers $12 Million Ticketing Scam
When officials at the Louvre in Paris suspected a couple of tour guides of reusing tickets in late 2024, they did not expect to...
Tate Modern Serves Frida With a Side of Capitalism
When museums pivot from contemplation to consumption, even revolutionary icons get commodified. Tate's Kahlo experience trades artistic liberation for lifestyle branding—because apparently unibrows sell...
University Gets Cold Feet Over Hot ICE Criticism
When your art hits too close to home, apparently even universities develop sudden institutional amnesia about academic freedom. Victor Quiñonez's immigrant-focused work got the...
The Machines Are Coming for Your Plot Twists
What seemed preposterous in a 1962 novel—story-writing machines—is now Silicon Valley gospel. As AI churns out narratives, we're left wondering: who's really telling the...
African Art Market Caught Between Home and Away
As Middle Eastern buyers flex their newfound muscle, African dealers face the classic dilemma: chase the international money or build local infrastructure first? Turns...
IMLS Makes America’s Grants Great Again
Federal cultural funding now comes with ideological strings attached, as museums and libraries discover their grant applications must suddenly harmonize with presidential vision statements....
When Words Have No Liability
We now live alongside AI systems that converse knowledgeably and persuasively—deploying claims about the world, explanations, advice, encouragement, apologies, and promises—while bearing no vulnerability...
The Man Who Thinks The Enlightenment Was A Mistake
Rod Dreher emerged from the conservative blogosphere in the 2000s and won fans with his daily stream of testy opinions and unguarded anecdotal writing....
