Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
This Year’s Venice Biennale Sets Attendance Record
It must, however, be noted that the 2022 exhibition ran longer than usual, stretching over 197 days instead of 173 days in 2019. According...
2,500 Strip On Australian Beach For Spencer Tunick Piece On Skin Cancer
The installation is American photographer Spencer Tunick's latest project, aimed at encouraging Australians to get regular skin checks. Legislation was changed to allow public...
UK Museum Returns Trove Of Bronzes To Benin
The Horniman Museum in south-east London is returning 72 items, including so-called Benin Bronzes, to Nigerian ownership - making it the first in the...
After Our COVID Digital Binge, We Need Analog
“Most of the interesting things in the human experience need friction,” Honoré explained, and they benefit from a slower approach: cooking, creativity, thoughtful work,...
Why “Gaslighting” Is The Merriam-Webster Word Of The Year
“In this age of misinformation — of ‘fake news,’ conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes — gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time,” the dictionary...
How Our Toys Got Corrupted
During the past two centuries, educators, psychologists, toy companies and parents like us have acted, implicitly or otherwise, as if the purpose of play...
New Technology That Replaces Most Musicians In The Theatre Pit
The innovative aspect of KeyComp, he said, is that a single musician can play one or two of the most important musical lines, and...
Remembering Theatre Critic Michael Feingold
Feingold’s greatness rested in the agility of his focus. He had the ability to take an aerial view of the work under consideration. But...
Carey Perloff Digs Into Stoppard
The more I’ve dug into Stoppard’s biography, the clearer it has become that, in spite of appearing to be a quintessential Englishman, he’s always...
You Knew It Would Happen: Popular AI Image Generator Starts Censoring
One user on Stable Diffusion’s sub-reddit said the removal of NSFW content was “censorship,” and “against the spirit philosophy of Open Source community.” Said the user:...
Newly-Promoted Star Paris Opera Ballet Dancer Quits Company As TV Career Flourishes
One of the best-known male dancers at the Paris Opera, who has won a big following outside ballet for working as a judge on...
Bob Dylan Apologizes For Autopen-Signed Books
Dylan says was given “the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.” Now that...
The Vatican’s $2 Billion Bathtub
One of the most valuable items in Rome is a bathtub that has been estimated to be worth $2 billion. And you thought your...
Bob Iger Returns To A Troubled Disney Animation Business
The poor performance of “Strange World” highlights one of the issues facing Mr. Iger. He returns to a theatrical environment far harsher to animated...
Inside The Quietest Room In The World (Will It Drive You Crazy?)
The mystique of the too-quiet room, if construed by outsiders, has perhaps been bolstered by the company’s website, which advertises an experience called “The...
Remembering The Human Toll And Creativity Lost To AIDS
Since AIDS was identified in the early 1980s, the World Health Organization estimates that over 40 million people have died of HIV or AIDS-related...
We’re Witnessing The Death Of Bands Touring
“The main problem is that fees for artists have not gone up despite the growing costs of inflation, gas prices, increased flight prices, hotels,...
Why Small Indie Bookstores Are Surviving
Now, when so many of our needs are unified and algorithm-prompted by online retail, independent bookstores offer person-to-person customization. Something, it turns out, that...
Having Trouble Hearing TV Dialogue? It’s Probably Not You
As more video-production studios embrace advanced audio formats for at-home content, not every device can keep up. Plenty of viewers can’t keep up, either. -...
Why Does The Mythology Of The “Lost City of Atlantis” Still Fascinate?
The confrontation is intriguing and raises many issues of which the most basic is the simple question: why has the story of Atlantis –...
Bad At Arguing? Try This
It’s not impossible to make your argument stick. And there’s been some good scientific work on this. Here are two strategies that, based on the...
After 70 Years, London’s “Mousetrap Is Coming To Broadway
On Friday, keen-eyed theatergoers discovered a website for the Broadway iteration, which announced that the murder mystery, whose London production holds the Guinness World Record for the...
This Year’s Oxford “Word Of The Year” To Be Chosen By Public Vote
Voting is now open online, and over the next two weeks English speakers can cast their vote, choosing from three words selected by Oxford University...
UK Orchestra Works With Dementia Patients To Recover Memories
While some with dementia can often feel trapped in the past, some researchers believe the act of creating music - as well as listening...
Disneyland Has Become A Lesser Experience. Iger Should Fix It
In recent years, especially in the months since it reopened after an extended, pandemic-forced closure, the tone of a visit to the Disneyland Resort...
