Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Tom Stoppard At 85
At 85, he retains, as Daphne Merkin once wrote in The New York Times, a louche glamour, “like a lounge lizard who reads Flaubert.” The house...
Has Roger Norrington Finally Unlocked The Mozart Code?
"I’ve tried to play Mozart well for 60 years now. When I started I had little clue. How fast should it go? (There are...
Sundance’s Next Leader
Hernandez, who currently serves as the senior vice president of Film at Lincoln Center, the executive director of the New York Film Festival and the...
The Avant Garde: I Used To Be A Contendah!
An avant-garde likes to present itself as insurgent and radical, yet the logic of the metaphor suggests that a new group will soon be...
What Luck In War Teaches Us About Your Odds In Life
It is not just in war and sport that luck plays such a great part. In our interconnected global economy, every business operates in...
When Goethe’s House Was Destroyed In WWII, Rebuilding Became Controversial
As Goethe later recalled in his autobiography, it was to the house that he owed his literary awakening. It was there, gazing at his family’s...
Canada’s Griffin Prize For Poetry Goes International
In announcing this shift, prize founder Scott Griffin said that Canadian poets are capable of competing on the world stage. “Yes, Canadians will not...
Australia Is Having An Extraordinary Debate On Cultural Policy
‘When you get it right, it affects our health policy, our education policy, our environment policy, foreign affairs, trade, veterans’ affairs, tourism… A nation...
What If Reality Is Defined By Relationships Rather Than Physical Properties?
Quantum physics may just be the realisation that this ubiquitous relational structure of reality continues all the way down to the elementary physical level....
America’s Museums Promised To Diversify. How Are They Doing?
We followed up with several museums on their grand pronouncements from 2020 to see what they’ve actually followed through on, how their plans have...
The Art World (And The Courts) Have No Idea How To Deal With AI...
“While it’s absolutely true that this AI art couldn’t exist if it weren’t trained on copyrighted images and the work of artists, the end...
The Publishing Industry Is Broken
While complaints from junior staffers about crushing workloads and low pay have begun to creep into some industry reporting, publishing veterans are also unhappy....
Iconoclastic Art Critic Charlie Finch, 68
He wrote on whether Black art had grown “kitschy” and whether Cy Twombly was a “fraud.” He defended Jeff Koons, whom he once called...
What’s Behind An Exodus Of BBC Hosts?
"A big one that we've seen in recent months and years is reorganisation at the BBC, particularly in the newsroom. A lot of that...
The Arts Face A Big Mask Problem
Arts presenters "know that some audience members will be deterred by mask requirements at a time when they have vanished from so many other...
In A Land Far Far Away: A Battle Between Three American Orchestras
The competition was intense. In the first pair of performances, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra eked out a slight advantage over the Philadelphia Orchestra in...
Ten Hard Questions About The Limits Of Human Intelligence
The question of what we can know of that which lies beyond the limits of our imagination is partially about the biological function of...
Inclusive Dance Is A Growing Art Form
It's an emerging art form — inclusive dance — in which dancers may be in wheelchairs, or on crutches, or have no obvious challenges at...
The Genius Of American Schools: They’re For Everyone
Without public education delivered as a public good, the asylum seeker in detention, the teenager in jail, not to mention millions of children growing...
Of Art, Artificial Intelligence And Artisty
From copying my music teacher to copying the great composers to mashing-up great recorded content to learning to ask AI to create – it’s...
Domingo Apologizes For “Humiliating” Performance
Plácido Domingo has issued a statement apologizing to the Arena di Verona for his recent performances, which resulted in an onstage protest from the...
Putin’s War Is Killing Classical Music In Russia
Even after the Soviet Union crumbled, Russia was able to keep up its classical strengths—and attract artists from all around the world. But now...
A Better Summer For Movies. But The Outlook Is Bleak
Almost everyone agrees that the 117-year-old movie exhibition business cannot keep going like this. But hardly anybody agrees on precisely the best way forward....
How Balanchine Reckoned With The USSR
The U.S.S.R. filled him with dread, and his return brought to light one of the great themes of his life: he had set his...
The Marilyn Monroe Biopic And The Murkiness Of The Dreaded NC-17 Rating
Even if a director wanted to edit their movie to please ratings royalty, the MPAA’s murky machinations could make it hard for her to...