Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How A Small British Columbia Community Theatre Erupted In Controversy
So how did a quaint, 175-seat theatre at the end of a quiet, dead-end street in the Rockland area find itself at the centre...
Why The Art World Needs To Do More About Climate Change
It’s not just that we could use more art and exhibitions about climate change. The art world and its institutions need to lead the...
Report: Americans Are Reading Fewer Books
“US adults are reading roughly two or three fewer books per year than they did between 2001 and 2016,” according to the report. -...
King Of Clowns (But Geez Is He Tough)
Phillippe Gaulier has been teaching clowns for about half a century, but his stature has grown in recent years, becoming an influential and divisive...
There’s Been An Explosion in “Public” Philosophy
There are, of course, books on philosophy, but also numerous popular live events, courses, podcasts, television and radio programmes, and newspaper columns. Philosophy today...
How Writers Create Fictional Maps For Their Narratives
As different novelistic styles, genres and methods of production have risen to prominence, they have enabled their own particular way of creating fictional terrain....
Why I Left The CBC
Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted." -...
How The Ratings Hit “Yellowstone” Is Bucking Cultural Trends
Streaming was supposed to be the great equalizer, for either access to content or its segmentation into competitive platforms warring for their niche and...
Why Is The LA County Museum Of Art Renting Out Its Reputation To Corporations?
Strip away the diverting celebrity names, and what’s left is just a museum show of a corporate collection. Corporate art collections are not a...
New Research Tracking Down Art Looted By The Nazis
The topic of the Nazi role in antiquities looting is increasingly drawing attention, in part through the work of scholars who are peeling back...
When NFTs Came To Marfa
The painter Christopher Wool was equally skeptical: “It sounds like you’re talking about art without aesthetics.” - The New Yorker
Just How Do You Decolonize Shakespeare?
Decolonising Shakespeare, with its historic links to English national identity, language and culture is a particularly knotty challenge. Shakespeare was writing in a country...
Nothing Virtual About Virtual Reality. Reality Is Reality
“A common way of thinking about virtual realities is that they’re somehow fake realities, that what you perceive in VR isn’t real. I think...
A Century Later, Russia Opens Czar Nicholas’s Restored Palace
In 2011, the Russian state decided to recreate the czar’s private suite — which had been furnished in the Art Nouveau style and was...
In What Language Do You Think?
No-one thinks in any natural language; not in English, or Italian, or whatever, but in a language of thought, an abstract, unconscious and moreover inaccessible,...
London’s National Theatre Sees Precipitous Decline In Revenue And Staff
Income at the National Theatre dropped by £50 million and the organisation lost just under a quarter of its staff in the first year...
Why Does Classical Music Stay Mired In The Hits?
Over the previous couple of generations, the canon has changed but it has consistently seemed to have been limited in scope and dependent on...
How Animals Process Music
First, it’s important to note that our furry friends process sound somewhat differently than we do. Human society is largely sight- and touch-focused. Domesticated...
The $500M Villa In Rome Where Galileo Walked — It’s For Sale
In past centuries, it had some notable visitors: Galileo, Goethe, Stendhal, Gogol, Tchaikovsky and Henry James. At the top of the hill stands the...
Ted Gioia Remembers Terry Teachout
"I always appreciated that warmth and compassion, but again I was hardly surprised. I had experienced it myself." - Ted Gioia
YouTube Removes “Dislike” Buttons And Engagement Goes Down
YouTube’s controversial move to remove public dislike counts in November was aimed at shielding smaller creators from harassment campaigns but has already started to discourage certain...
Vicious Book Review Are Back With A Vengeance
If the hatchet job ever died, it is — like Gawker — back with a vengeance. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that...
Why It’s So Difficult To Predict The Future
There is an assumption that the more scientific the approach to predictions, the more accurate forecasts will be. But this belief causes more problems...
Audio Books That Become Inseparable From Their Readers
With audiobooks, voice narrators are (almost) everything. They can make a great story greater and a bad story better. This is especially true with...
What Qualities Ought The Next Music Director Of The Kansas City Symphony Have?
The Symphony board could make a statement by requiring, for one thing, that Michael Stern’s successor take up full-time residence in Kansas City. - KCStudio