Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Universal Music Buys An Ape NFT To Lead NFT Music Group
On Friday, Universal's 10:22PM label said it paid $360,817 to purchase Bored Ape #5537 - a female character now known as Manager Noët All,...
Rare Marvel Comic Sells For $2.4 Million
The book, Marvel Comics No. 1, published in 1939, is so valuable because it is known as the pay copy, in which the publisher recorded...
The Arts’ Digital Problem
Digitalization has affected both the demand and supply for cultural content. Increasingly sophisticated technology and adoption of digital devices to experience things remote because...
Met Animates Under-Seen Rococo With Disney
The Met's eighteenth-century “decorative arts” usually languish in the museum’s emptiest galleries. Yet when Disney animated them into characters like the candlestick Lumiére in Beauty...
Why Are Black Women Museum Leaders Quitting?
The swift departures of these women in leadership positions have generally been swept under the proverbial rug, where these women quietly navigate the complexities...
How The Dua Lipa Plagiarism Case Could Change Music
If either Artikal Sound System or Linzer and Brown win their case, songwriters may have even more to worry about. Will one measure of...
Remembering Dance Critic Clement Crisp, 95
Crisp's dance reviews for the Financial Times – "the pink 'un" – from 1970 until 2020 were legendary for their passionate fastidiousness about ballerinas and high style, their acuity...
The Anti-Putin Songs That Have Gone Viral In Ukraine
A track titled “Bayraktar,” of indeterminate origin, has been receiving hundreds of thousands of plays online, and is in rotation on Ukrainian radio. Over...
15 Things That Suck About Museums
Walking around a museum can feel a little off-putting when you know that workers aren’t being paid a fair wage — and, in the case of...
Classical Music, Politics, And The Ethics Around War
The reactions to people being banned and insisting, Oh, we’re not politicians, we’re artists, and therefore what we’re doing is not political—I think that...
End Of An Era: Humana Theatre Festival Calls It Quits
Several of the more than 400 plays presented at the festival have gone on to win wider accolades — “The Gin Game” by D.L....
Does The Rock ‘N Roll Hall Need A Name Change?
When the artists being nominated and inducted are questioning their own “rock and roll” credentials, does the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have...
Barbara Kruger On Life In The Digital World
"I don’t sue people. I will let all these corporations who are old-school robber barons do that. I think copyrights are euphemisms for corporate...
We’re Studying How Literature Is Preserved (It May Be Important)
“Thinking about how cultural heritage survives seems like a useful thing to do, because right now—among many other things—that’s one of the important things threatened...
Why Do So Many Operas Kill Off Women?
Of the top 20 most performed operas worldwide in the 2017–2018 season according to Operabase.com, 75 percent feature female characters who were dead by the...
Study: Listeners Wearing Headphones Are More “Persuadable” Than Those Listening Through Speakers
The driver of this greater bond with listeners is the idea that headphones make it sound like the voices are inside one's head, meaning...
Embattled Nielsen Ratings Company For Sale?
Nielsen is in the midst of a months-long joust with some of its biggest clients, the nation’s TV networks. The networks and their owners have...
A New Gehry Concert Hall Across From Disney Hall
The hall will stand behind the Grand — the spectacular, multipurpose complex across the street from Disney Hall that was also designed by Gehry...
Russian-Owned Philips Auction House Faces Rocky Future
Despite it donating £5.8m to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society from a recent auction in London, and its CEO condemning the Russian invasion, those...
St. Louis Symphony Plans Makeover And Reconception Of Its Home
The new project, which includes both renovations to the existing structure and a 65,000-square-foot expansion, is focused on accessibility and furthering community connections. - St. Louis...
Did Capitalism Strand Classical Music?
Capitalism first created the space in which such music could flourish, and then took it away, leaving behind a frozen, formalized tradition. - Jacobin
Ballerina Quits Bolshoi Ballet Over War
It was announced on Wednesday that Olga Smirnova, who was born and raised in St Petersburg, has now joined the Dutch National Ballet, where...
The Siren Call Of Cosmopolitan Universal Language
Latin, classical Arabic and Sanskrit were no one’s mother tongue. They are cosmopolitan tongues, mega-languages that evolved to facilitate communication between local dialects, then expanded...
New York’s New Wage Transparency Law Will Affect The Arts
“The US art world is notorious for being vague about salaries. A job might pay $40,000; it might pay $80,000. Right now, you can’t...
This Scientist Has Worked Out A Model Of Human History That Suggests Bad Times...
Peter Turchin has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and...
