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Five Story Highlights From The Past Week 02.19.17: Trapped By PACs, New WTC As Cautionary Tale, Exploiting Humanities Workers

February 20, 2017 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

Last Week: Have performing arts centers led us to a dead end?... The new World Trade Center in New York demonstrates much of what is wrong with building today's cities... The humanities only exist on the exploitation of its workers... Here's the structure that makes the Grammys racist... A pocket history of fake news. In case you missed it, ArtsJournal published Joe Horowitz's essay on the … [Read more...]

Join Us Today For A Livestream: Artistic Leadership In A Border City

February 17, 2017 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

Following on Joe Horowitz's essay Lincoln Center Snapshot: Bing, Bernstein, and Balanchine Fifty Years Later and the five responses to his provocation, we're in El Paso, Texas today for a conversation about artistic leadership in a city literally divided in two - El Paso, Texas on one side of a border fence and Juarez, Mexico on the other side. The University of Texas, El Paso and the El Paso … [Read more...]

Five Highlights From This Week’s AJ: The Big Ideas You Need To Know, Says MIT

January 22, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

This Week: Trump, the arts, the culture budget and protest... Harvard ART school gets suspended...MIT's list of 10 things you need to know... Writers and money - the straight dope. Trump Inauguration And Artists: Obviously the biggest story this week was the American inauguration and the demonstrations the day after. There were dozens of stories pondering the role of art and artists in … [Read more...]

Five Highlight Reads From This Week’s AJ: Did Originality Steer The Arts Wrong?

January 15, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 3 Comments

This Week: The Trump era is a challenge to America's arts institutions... Artificial intelligence is teaching us how to better-design concert halls... How originality has failed art... The Metropolitans Museum and Opera are struggling... Is Canada becoming the first "post-nation" state? The Role Of Arts Institutions In The Era Of Trump: As what follows any seismic shift in the landscape, … [Read more...]

Five Notable Stories From This Week’s ArtsJournal – Blockbuster Mozart?

December 18, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

This Week: Mozart outsells every CD this year?... How artificial intelligence is changing thinking... Why should artists be entrepreneurs?... How the West dominated global culture... Zadie Smith speaks out about multiculturalism. Was Mozart The Best-Selling CD Of The Year? That's the claim. Universal Classics says that a major Mozart release this fall has sold 1.25 million CDs so far, more … [Read more...]

This Week’s Top ArtsJournal Reads: An Artist Identity Crisis?

December 4, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

This Week: The next wave of arts journalism layoffs begins... Lots of debate about the role of artists in the Trump era... Prominent Canadian artists petition the government to "fix" support for creativity... It's getting harder to define what "home" is... Is "mindfulness" overrated? Three More Big City Newspaper Arts Writers Call It Quits:  A new wave of reductions in arts coverage have … [Read more...]

This Week’s Top AJ Stories: Does Pittsburgh Symphony Strike Settlement Solve Anything? Should Arts Funding Be Dependent On Encouraging Bad Behavior?

November 27, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

This Week: Did settling the Pittsburgh Symphony strike just kick the can down the road?... The idea of progress is a fragile (and recent) notion... Why should this arts funding depend on encouraging bad behavior?... The art establishment is caught in an increasingly high-stakes investment battle... We celebrate reading - but has the dissemination of ideas and knowledge moved on? Pittsburgh … [Read more...]

This Week’s AJ Highlights: “Hamilton” Teaches The Art Of Protest, At Last Some Real Data On Orchestras

November 20, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 5 Comments

This Week: That Mike Pence goes to "Hamilton" story? A textbook protest... Finally - some real data on the health of orchestras... Arts criticism is either being reborn or it's in dire shape... Pop culture is getting to be only for the rich... The myth of the outsider is a standard pop culture meme... The Arts And Our Next President: Many many many stories this week about artists reacting to … [Read more...]

This Week’s AJ Highlights: Divided Culture, Audience Issues, Hope From Lin Manuel Miranda

November 13, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

This Week: Hard to imagine there are arts headlines to compete with election news, but here goes: Science tries to explain why we're ideologically segregated... It's not just politics - arts and entertainment don't really know what their audiences want... Even the most-respected arts coverage is being cut back... Infighting on the jury of the National Book Awards point to how deeply we're … [Read more...]

This Week’s AJ Highlights: Ominous Orchestra Results? New Arts Journalism? Accountable Algorithms?

November 6, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

This Week: Record ticket sales at the Chicago Symphony but still a budget problem...Wall Street Journal cuts arts coverage and Boston Globe gets a subsidized critic...Why did Shakespeare's Globe fire its director?...Two cities on opposite sides of a border, share common arts culture... Who will hold intelligent machines accountable? An Ominous Report For Orchestras? The Chicago Symphony … [Read more...]

This Week’s Top AJ Stories: A Huge Drop In Dance Audiences, MFA Programs.

October 23, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

This Week: Why has dance attendance fallen off a cliff in New York?... Applications for MFA programs are down and things are looking bleak... Has our ad-supported business model for content killed quality?... There's a big surge in art that addresses political issues... Bob Dylan, and what he means. What's Caused A Precipitous Drop In Dance Attendance In NYC? New York is the center of the … [Read more...]

The Bigger Picture: Making Sense Of This Week’s Trending ArtsJournal Stories

October 16, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 3 Comments

This Week: Did Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for literature expand the category to songwriting?... Artists protest against gentrification... We're deeply conflicted about the value of creativity... Is Google rewiring our brains so they don't work so well?... Are we all living in a giant computer simulation? (don't laugh) American Wins Nobel Literature Prize (Just Not The American Anyone … [Read more...]

Five AJ Highlights From This Week: A Golden Age For Music? An Arts Olympics?

October 9, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

This Week: The movie industry is undergoing a top-to-bottom revolution... Claim: teaching humanities fights racism... Outing the identity of Elena Ferrante sparks debate on privacy... Now may be the best-ever time for music... Do we really need an Olympics for the arts? Big Changes In How Movies Are Being Made: Hollywood had a rocky summer. The studios invested big in blockbusters but they … [Read more...]

AJ Week In Review: Two Big Orchestras Strike, Two Others Report Record Success

October 2, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 2 Comments

This Week: Three orchestras now on strike as audience waits... Two other orchestras report record success... A museum raises $100 million in just three months... Bots are getting awfully good at making art... More links between being bored and being creative. A Bad Week For Three Orchestras: The audience was sitting in Verizon Hall waiting for the Philadelphia Orchestra to take the stage … [Read more...]

Five Stories/Trends From This Week’s ArtsJournal: How The Arts Speak To Real Life

September 25, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

This Week: Why is it so hard to tell if American theatre is thriving or not?... Have art and technology had a falling out?... Perhaps TV is the solution to our political polarization... The music industry seems to be finally getting it together... A cautionary tale about getting swallowed up by the online world. Theatre: The Best of Times or the Worst? Why is it so difficult to judge the … [Read more...]

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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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  • Douglas McLennan on Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance: “True – but the Swiftie phenomenon demonstrates how deeply people want to engage and that they’re willing to pay dearly…” Jul 24, 21:25
  • Tom Corddry on Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance: “An additional data point: Taylor Swift drew 144,000+ to her two Seattle concerts, at an average ticket price of $123.…” Jul 24, 15:34
  • Steven Lavine on Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance: “Terrific account. Like so many of our social media Augmented crises, it’s hard to see a way forward.” Jul 24, 13:52
  • Howard Mandel on Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance: “At least it’s clear the “ long-tail” argument was a canard.” Jul 24, 06:10
  • Sam Hodak on Too Many Artists Or Not Enough Value?: “So what you’re telling me is… make a VR experience” May 12, 00:03
  • Mark on What If Disruption Was Just A Tech Con Game?: “Thank you” Mar 19, 13:15
  • Douglas McLennan on Still Amusing Ourselves to Death: Information as Cautionary Tale: “Hi John: Yes – remember over the last decade how Big Data was going to change everything and drive every…” Nov 26, 07:46
  • John McCann on Still Amusing Ourselves to Death: Information as Cautionary Tale: “I haven’t read this book, yet your review triggered an insight about information shared within organizations and how so much…” Nov 26, 03:57
  • Richard Voorhaar on The UnderTow: The High-flying Oil Industry fears “Demand Destruction.” Should the Arts?: “We have reached the point where the average American has no attention span. A 3-4 minute pop tune is all…” Jun 10, 11:22
  • Alan Harrison on The UnderTow: The High-flying Oil Industry fears “Demand Destruction.” Should the Arts?: “Brilliant piece, Doug. It’s why, in my own columns on LinkedIn and Medium, I may have become more strident recently…” Jun 8, 15:46

Top Posts

  • Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance
  • If Dance Can't Pay Its Dancers What Does It Mean To Be A Professional Dancer?
  • How Has Technology Changed Orchestras? -- My Talk for the League of American Orchestras Conference
  • The UnderTow: Subscriptions are the New Business Model of Choice. So Why are Subscriptions Failing in the Arts?
  • More Valuable - The Ticket Buyer Or The Donor?

Recent Posts

  • Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance July 23, 2023
  • Still Amusing Ourselves to Death: Information as Cautionary Tale November 25, 2022
  • The UnderTow: What the new Edinburgh Fringe Tells us about a Post-COVID World June 26, 2022
  • The UnderTow: The High-flying Oil Industry fears “Demand Destruction.” Should the Arts? June 7, 2022
  • The UnderTow: Subscriptions are the New Business Model of Choice. So Why are Subscriptions Failing in the Arts? May 23, 2022
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An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Inflection Point? A Crisis in Paying for Culture in the Age of Abundance
  • Still Amusing Ourselves to Death: Information as Cautionary Tale
  • The UnderTow: What the new Edinburgh Fringe Tells us about a Post-COVID World
  • The UnderTow: The High-flying Oil Industry fears “Demand Destruction.” Should the Arts?
  • The UnderTow: Subscriptions are the New Business Model of Choice. So Why are Subscriptions Failing in the Arts?

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