Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How The Mythologies Of UFOs Color Our View Of Government
A recent edited collection of essays by leading ufologists notes that, some seventy-five years after the alleged Roswell crash, we arguably know no more...
The Limitations Of Our One-Dimensional Schooling
In the consumerist world, the difference between true and false needs vanishes—we become convinced that ultimate fulfillment can be found in our next luxury...
How Harry Styles Caught Our Collective Mood
Harry’s House is simply just fun pop music at the perfect time. We are coming out of a pandemic and are in a cost...
US Movie Releases Are No Longer Necessary For International Success
The U.S. theatrical market is no longer always an accurate model. Certain genres, particularly action and thriller, tend to out-perform globally — there’s a...
Are Theatre Creators Being Shut Out Of Credit?
Today, a de-emphasis on the authors and director seems more common within theatre marketing – a far cry from the days when contractual language...
What Membership Data Say About Health Of Public Media
Median Membership Revenue for the three-month period from October through December is down 0.6% year-over-year. TV and joint-licensee stations saw a decrease of 0.7% in membership...
Alex Ross: Being Realistic About Dudamel
Unlike its future-oriented counterpart on the West Coast, the New York Philharmonic is always looking back to its glory days under Mahler, Toscanini, Bernstein,...
The Hammer Museum’s Building Transformation Has Taken 24 Years
After a 24-year renovation and expansion and a $180m capital campaign (of which $156m has been raised), the Hammer has announced 26 March as...
How Google Lost Its Creative Edge
Google was incredibly insecure—always was, and still is. The company, which had toppled a market leader by building better technology, is haunted by the...
AI Is Coming For Music
This technology “is generating infinite music that isn’t actually composed by anybody, and that’s a terrible, scary, awful way of thinking about where music...
How Craft Beer Creates Community
In 2015 there were 4,803 craft breweries in the US, by 2021 there were 9,118. Equally important is the ideological shift in the beer market...
Defending JK Rowling
This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of...
The Case For Everything-Is-Math
The mathematics that's all around us, after all, doesn't come to us smoothly, in neatly formed themes or topics or packages. It's not separated...
The Culture Battle Over Snark And Superficial Knowingness
The current state of public discourse, if it’s even worthy of that name, is a strange fusion where smarm and snark wrestle and embrace...
Japan’s Anti-Disney Theme Park
Disney is, famously, a vast corporate content farm, with all artistic choices carefully examined by an assembly line of executives, marketers, focus groups, etc....
Theatre Audience Behavior Is Getting Worse, In Part Because Of… Marketing?
West End Theatres: “We are talking to them about marketing. So, when we market shows let’s not have phrases such as ‘best party in...
Why AI-Produced Art Makes Artists More Valuable
Instead of thinking of AI-generated art as a doomsday development — a cluster-bomb thrown by Big Tech into the heart of the art world...
Tate Britain To Rehang Its Collection For First Time In Ten Years, Giving More...
As part of its commitment to diversifying its collections, great female artists from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries – including some never seen...
Ukrainian National Orchestra Arrives At Carnegie Hall
The Carnegie performance was added last spring. The hall’s leaders heard about the tour and thought that hosting the orchestra would help show solidarity...
Streaming Has Upended How Writers Get Paid. New Contract Negotiations Will Be Tough
The streaming revolution has upended the old system of compensation. The syndication market for TV shows has all but disappeared, and residuals from movies...
Dallas Morning News Guts Its 19-Year-Old Spanish-Language Paper
Dallas County’s population is 40% Hispanic/Latino (1.05 million people) and 34% of residents speak Spanish at home, according to 2020 census data (though Latinos were also heavily...
Louvre’s Antiquities Scandal Raises Questions About Acquisitions (And France’s Moral Standing)
“Recent events question the quality of acquisition procedures and the functioning of its market. A reaction is necessary to guarantee France’s capacity for influence...
How Turkey’s Ancient Sites Fared In The Earthquake
At the ancient citadel of Aleppo, which was also recently damaged during Syria’s civil war, parts of an Ottoman-era mill collapsed along with parts...
How Robert Wilson Changed The Metropolitan Opera 25 Years Ago
This “Lohengrin,” so radical for the Met at the time, anticipated today’s broader range of directorial approaches there — like Willy Decker’s starkly symbolic “La...
The Terrible State Of The Modern Rom-Com
The connection between love interests, once a central element of the rom-com, has in recent years seemed secondary at best; now it’s actually plausible...
