Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Lang Lang’s New Serious Album: A Case For Disney Songs
The pianist has spent the last four years commissioning new arrangements of the Disney songbook, turning the company’s vast library of show tunes —...
In A Hyper-Polarized World, How Do We Have Civil Public Debates?
I knew that if I merely retreated to my “side,” I would only contribute to the problem. With some trepidation, then, I set out...
Remembering Architect James Stewart Polshek
Polshek rarely worked for private clients. He devoted himself to public buildings, ranging from the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the Museum...
The Importance Of Ritual In Success
Rituals are highly structured. They require rigidity (they must always be performed the “correct” way), repetition (the same actions performed again and again) and...
New Architecture Projects Built Around Values
The best architecture can transform our ways of thinking, our work, our connections to local community. - The New York Times
Prominent Writer Advises Readers Not To Read His Biography Of Brett Favre
"I wrote a biography of the man that was largely glowing. Football heroics, overcoming obstacles, practical joker, etc. And, looking at it now, if...
An Inflection Point For Creating Images With Artificial Intelligence
Although momentum behind AI-generated art has been building for a while, the release of Stable Diffusion might be the moment the technology really takes...
Pop Music’s Tension Between New And Familiar
The longevity of old songs is an even greater mystery when what every era’s fans want is the fresh, the startling, the new. - The...
It’s Difficult To Overstate The Importance Of Martha Graham To American Dance
Modern dance in the United States did not emerge from a legible high-art context—a handful of individuals, mostly women, had to make their own,...
Why It’s So Difficult To Write About Images
The English vocabulary is especially limited, with only 170,000 or so words in an English dictionary. What does this mean to the art writer...
Australian Writers Decry Their Place In The Country’s Cultural Support Structures
“Funding and the politics of funding within the Australia Council is dominated by performing arts, the lion’s share of funds goes to performing arts...
How An Orchestra’s Home Imprints An Orchestra’s Sound
It seems logical that an orchestra’s basic tools of sound production – tone colour, dynamics, rhythmic precision and articulation – are strongly influenced by...
David Frum: Is Returning African Art The Right Thing To Do?
Each museum that pledges to surrender some or all of its African collection intensifies the pressure on the holdout institutions to follow. But each...
How The Broadway Revival Of “Funny Girl” Became Real-Life Drama
This revival’s story is the real-life version of Smash, NBC’s own campy drama about casting the perfect lead; from previews to present day, Funny Girl has been...
Artificial Intelligence Is Sneaking Into Everything Around Us – Subtle, Unobtrusive…
Unlike search or social media, whose arrivals the general public encountered and discussed and had opinions about, artificial intelligence remains esoteric—every bit as important...
New York Theatre Right Now? The Avant-Cozy
Anything, including revolution, can be repurposed as comfort right now. Nostalgia isn’t just for conservatives—we are in the time of the derriere-garde, experimental hygge,...
Google AI Researcher Concludes: Artificial Intelligence Could Destroy Humanity
The paper, published last month in the peer-reviewed AI Magazine, is a fascinating one that tries to think through how artificial intelligence could pose an existential risk...
The Structural Blocks To Reimagining Museums
Museums must be disentangled from national and corporate interests that guide narratives and reproduce dominant social norms. Structural transformation is needed which involves more diverse...
A History Of Encyclopedias: Our Search For Authority And Meaning
It "was meant as reference, but also to be savoured. The 11th edition of Britannica (1929) featured Cecil B. DeMille on motion pictures and J.B. Priestley...
An Opera Lover’s Treasure-house: SF Opera Makes Available Its Archives
The new online hub at sfopera.com/firstcentury features recordings from the company’s past, along with rare artist interviews, archival photographs, program articles, oral history excerpts and newly...
Manohla Dargis Remembers Jean-Luc Godard: A Prophet Of Film’s Future As An Artform
When we speak of adored artists, we often flash on the first time we encountered their work, a tendency that evokes first love. I...
EU, UK File €25 Billion Lawsuit Against Google Over Digital Ad, Search Manipulation
“This important claim will represent a class of victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech who have collectively lost an estimated £7bn. This...
Philosophically Speaking, What Constitutes A “Good Conversation”
British philosophers from the 18th century, who were fixated on impressions and ideas, would have taken successful conversations to be those that moved the relevant cluster...
Ukrainian Ballet Star Killed On The Battlefield
The National Opera of Ukraine announced, with "indescribable sadness," the death of Oleksandr Shapoval, one of the company's former principal dancers and a teacher at...
Meet The AI Currently Embroiling The Artist (And Regulatory) Communities
The movement’s prominence has led to fierce debate in art circles, with some arguing that it creates an “ethical and copyright black hole,” given...
