Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How Dishes Became A Canvas For Propaganda
Stocks of unpainted, snow-white china became a tantalising canvas for avant-garde artists keen to express their utopian ideologies and rouse enthusiasm for the new...
Does Junk Media Rot Your Brain?
The underlying logic of brain-rot, a messy mutual entanglement between brain and culture, endures. In particular, the idea that lower, popular forms of culture...
Peter Gelb On Reinventing The Met Opera
"I’m sure the Met is thought of as a conservative institution in some quarters, I believe this is no time to be conservative....
How Technology Is Rediscovering Lost Art
Much as AI, or machine learning, has been woven into the rest of our daily lives, it's now taking a shot at resurrecting precious cultural artefacts...
The Man Who Declared The End Of History Goes To War With History
It turns out that Francis Fukuyama doesn’t like what history’s end has wrought. Liberalism has been corrupted by bad actors on all sides who...
Report: 36 Countries Have More Trees Now Than They Did In 2000
Countries—including Bangladesh, China, Denmark, Ireland, and Uruguay, and Bangladesh—had a net gain in tree cover, according to new data from researchers at the University of Maryland...
Talent Agency Mega-Merger: CAA Buys ICM
The deal reduces the number of top agencies to three dominant players: CAA, WME and United Talent Agency. ICM is the fourth largest firm....
The Real Power Of Our Age: Fandom
"For me, at least, fandom has started to feel like a phenomenon akin to cryptocurrency or economic populism—a history-shaping force that we’d be foolish...
Ted Cruz Goes To War With A Muppet Again Over Vaccines
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) shared the clip on Twitter — and blasted the popular PBS/HBO children’s show for allowing Elmo to “aggressively advocate for...
The Point: Criticism That “Stakes A Claim”
I do think the purpose of criticism is to make an assertive claim for what is there. When Toni Morrison speaks of the “Africanist...
The Ghosts Inhabiting Cities
Most metropolises are overrun with ghosts; from New York to London, Mumbai to Shanghai, a simple Google search throws up an encyclopaedia’s worth of...
Woody Allen Says He’ll Retire From Directing
“I’ll probably make at least one more movie. A lot of the thrill is gone,” Allen said. - Variety
The Benefits Of A Long Career In One Orchestra
In this respect, the orchestral world is like a throwback to the postwar employment landscape, when it was not uncommon to spend your entire...
Iconic Daytime Shows Have Called It Quits This Year
A sea of change has hit the daytime format this year as a slew of veteran hosts call it a day. As audiences flock...
Stunning Daylight Attack On TEFAF Fair
In a brazen raid on the Tefaf art fair, one of the men was filmed smashing cases with a sledgehammer while accomplices kept visitors...
What Print Books Are In A Time Of Digital Dominance
Perhaps the term “antiquarian,” which traditionally referred to old, valuable books, often first editions and manuscripts, now seems to me to apply to all...
What The Ancients Knew That Seems So Familiar Today
"It’s really quite strange that people from so long ago seem to have understood so much. And, if you’re looking at things like sexual...
The Value Of Thought Experiments
There are – allegedly – occasions when we come to understand something about the world via a peculiar kind of experiment that takes place...
Just Whom Did The Industrial Revolution Benefit?
When we talk about labor-saving devices, whose labor is saved, exactly? It’s women’s labor. But during the industrial era, the household work traditionally performed by men...
Is Smell The Next Frontier In Theatre?
Away from theatre, the retail sector regularly uses smell to help drive sales (though they give it a nicer name – scent), in a...
Artist Sam Gilliam, 88
Gilliam’s abstractions are unusual in that they are often sculptural, in essence suggesting that painting need not be two-dimensional. Working by methods in which...
Canadian Parliament Ponders New Streaming Law To Require Canadian Content
"The CRTC chair has acknowledged that the law will allow the government to do indirectly what it says it can't do directly, by pressuring...
TEFAF Maastricht Returns To New Realities
The long-established event, regarded as the world’s pre-eminent fair for art, objects and furniture ranging back through the centuries, was canceled in 2021 and postponed...
The Weird Wonderfulness Of Going Back To Glastonbury
If arriving onsite is a slightly discombobulating experience at first – even for a seasoned Glastonbury-goer, the sheer volume of people feels weirdly overwhelming...
Canadian Libraries Slammed By Hate Groups Over LGBTQ-Friendly Programs
More than half a dozen libraries and drag performers, from Saint John to Victoria, reported being inundated online and over the phone by homophobic slurs and, in...