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Are The Arts To Blame For Donald Trump?

December 29, 2019 by Douglas McLennan 11 Comments

A few months ago I was at a conference of administrators of large arts institutions when a leading researcher in cultural trends made a bold claim: The election of Donald Trump is a result of the failure of the arts and culture sector. The point, he said, was that values expressed by the arts sector seem so at odds with the populist nationalist Trump wave that one could view the election not … [Read more...]

Killing NEA, NEH And PBS Is Just Collateral Damage In The Commodification Of American Values

January 20, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 22 Comments

So it begins. A report in The Hill, then picked up in the Washington Post, says that the Trump administration intends to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and sell off PBS. It's part of a plan to cut some $10.5 trillion over the next decade. Zeroing out the culture budgets isn't about money; together, the NEA, NEH and PBS account for … [Read more...]

Context: Hollywood’s Political Bias? It’s Money

January 17, 2017 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

Unquestionably, a majority of the people who work in Hollywood lean politically left. More than lean, in many cases. But how much of their politics makes it onto the big screen? Rory Carroll takes up the question in the Guardian, writing that: "the industry as a whole could disappoint those hoping for a liberal, inclusive wave from Los Angeles to counter rightwing populism from … [Read more...]

“Art Is Good?” Not Much Of An Argument For Art Is It?

September 29, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 8 Comments

I suggested in a post this week that, based on the lack of any arts business before the 114th US Congress, that it appears that lobbying for the arts seems to be failing. Yes, the NEA/NEH budgets have stayed more or less stable for the past few years, but the almost complete lack of any action on policy related to the arts suggests the arts have no place in a national agenda. And I suggested that … [Read more...]

Arts Congressional Report Card: Why The Arts Have No Political Clout

September 27, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

Americans for the Arts Action Fund PAC has released its 2016 Congressional Arts Report Card rating members of Congress on their support for the arts. Many lobby groups do such rankings as a way of "holding politicians accountable" for how they vote on issues the lobbyists care about. The rankings are then used to support or punish those who vote or don't vote on issues the lobbyists designate and … [Read more...]

Artists Erased From The Web And Our Growing Problem With Facts

September 4, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

Artist and author Dennis Cooper got his blog back this week. Google had suddenly removed the 14-year-old blog a few months ago without warning and had refused to answer Cooper's repeated attempts to find out why. After the takedown got attention "from international media outlets, a statement of support from PEN America and a petition to recover the blog," Google finally responded to Cooper's … [Read more...]

Is Naked Trump Bad Satire? (And Do We Care?)

August 24, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 5 Comments

In this week's AJ highlights I included some of the stories we found about the naked Donald Trump statues that appeared in five American cities last week. One reader was unhappy: Vile & disgusting. This is not art nor it is political commentary. This is the second time in as many weeks Arts Journal has trashed Trump. I come here for news about classical arts and I am faced with this rubbish. … [Read more...]

Trump, The Tenor, And Fascism

August 4, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 5 Comments

Over on Slate this week Brian Wise posted a piece about Donald Trump and his playing of Puccini's Nussun Dorma at campaign events. Trump had been using a recording of Pavarotti singing the aria and the singer's family had contacted him to ask him to stop. Musicians have been complaining for years about politicians using their music at events without permission, and it's always fun to ridicule a … [Read more...]

Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

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Recent Comments

  • Margy Waller on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “THIS x — I’ve been wanting this so much. We need a think tank — or a think tank with…” Sep 10, 12:28
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “William, Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm?…” Sep 2, 07:52
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm? It’s…” Sep 1, 06:13
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “I agree with Douglas that public arts funding is too politically fraught in the United States to grow it to…” Aug 31, 11:55
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “About “static models.” Private funding systems are sometimes promoted exactly because they are thought to be more flexible than public…” Aug 30, 15:56
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas comments that our current private funding model “no longer works as it was intended, so we need to rethink.”…” Aug 30, 15:18
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Franklin – thanks for this. Very useful. A few things – your example of the movies – the creative side…” Aug 30, 12:28
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Earl: This is a whole different topic of course, but one I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I…” Aug 30, 08:41
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Sorry, “in conjunction with one another” in the first paragraph, and not really influence peddling in the last one, but…” Aug 30, 04:25
  • Earl G. Blackburn on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas, I can’t thank you enough for this post. I’ve been working on a new model of executing management for…” Aug 29, 21:46

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Recent Posts

  • Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea
  • Five Things to Fix in the Arts
  • How Technology is Shaping Opera
  • Parlez-Vous Screen? (online arts and other considerations)
  • Arts: Rebuild What? And Why?

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