Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How The Word “Performative” Got Corrupted
What is worse, the meaning of performative in contemporary parlance, while not very precise, is almost exactly the opposite of the word’s original meaning. - Hedgehog Review
Why Do We Still Care About Shakespeare?
So why do we still read him, and why do so many people still flock to his plays, despite their archaisms lichened with footnotes...
What’s The Next Defining Tech Era?
So what can we see bubbling up in techland at the moment? If you believe the industry, metaverses (plural) – basically conceived as massive virtual-reality environments...
Bill Rauch On The Performing Arts Center At The World Trade Center
The PAC will be the final piece of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, a three-story building — 129,000-square feet with three flexible...
The Mercury Prize Glorifies Albums When No One Listens To Albums Anymore
Since the turn to online services, however, the award has undertaken an additional role. It is upholding the idea of the album in the...
LA’s New Movie Museum Has A Weird Omission: Music
The studios, of course, have a long and famous history of cluelessness when it comes to soundtracks. They’ve tossed countless original scores into the...
Why Young Korean Musicians Are Ascendant In Classical Music
Thierry Loreau, a Belgian filmmaker and TV director, sees the domination of young Koreans in classical music competitions as a cultural phenomenon, labeling it...
Time To End Artsploitation
Behind the New Museum’s veneer of social justice was rampant exploitation. Salaries were so low that full-time employees worked extra jobs. An hourly rate...
That Didn’t Take Long: LA MoCA Leader Flees To Berlin
Just eight days after the Museum of Contemporary Art said Klaus Biesenbach would run the Los Angeles institution with a newly named co-leader, Biesenbach...
Where The Wisdom Of Crowds Falls Short
Our recent research suggests that while group deliberation can indeed increase the accuracy of forecasts, it can lead you astray when it comes to making a...
Why This University Professor Resigned
Students are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues. Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent...
The Problem With Music About 9/11
Is composing a piece of music linked to 9/11 a straightforward means of evoking a type of uncomplicated emotional reaction? Is this disaster a...
Gymnasts Are Getting Dancier — And Getting Attention
Recently, it seems, an NCAA routine goes viral every year not necessarily for its technical content, but for the sheer quality of the dancing....
Pioneering Theatre Critic Andy Propst, 56
Propst is best known as the founder of AmericanTheaterWeb.com, an early online home for America's not-for-profit theaters, and the first serious attempt to provide...
Why The Arts Struggled To Express 9/11
For a long time it was safer to go small. - The New York Times
Why Bach Is So Compelling
To appreciate the music of Bach, it can be instructive to understand both the mechanics and the mechanic: the musical systems, and the man...
Why Hybrid Film Festivals Are The Future
Online festival screenings have attracted large and enthusiastic new audiences for independent and artist-led film. The hybrid edition of Sundance 2021 reached an audience...
The Sad, Confused Final Days Of Robert Indiana
Whether Indiana was the subject of fraud and abuse—and how much he knew about it all, if that was the case—is something we’ll likely...
Elizabeth McCann, 90 – Broadway Producer Extraordinaire
In a dizzying four-decade career she won nine Tony Awards and gave New York audiences more than 60 Broadway productions, including such hits as...
The Unusual History Of Free Jazz
Given the revolutionary nature of the music, it’s no surprise that many in the field greeted it with such disdain. - The Guardian
New Movie Museum Shows LACMA Made A Mistake Selling Old Department Store
Christopher Knight: "Although the department store would not have made good art museum exhibition space, it is now very easy to see how well...
Two Huge Tom Cruise Movies Are On Hold. Will Hollywood Survive?
Suddenly, the unthinkable had happened: Tom Cruise seemingly now had nothing to do. - Deadline
Where We Are Now In Teaching Machines To Learn
High hopes for the imminent arrival of general AI have been there from the very beginning, and the successes of machine learning keep them...
Australian Court Rules Media Can Be Sued For Comments On Posts
It comes after a former teenage prisoner sued media companies over Facebook comments posted below articles about his mistreatment in detention. - BBC
Do Big Film Festivals Still Matter?
These days it pays to look at things from a sober perspective, but let’s face it: glitz can be fun. - Toronto Star