Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Art Market Soars To Record £2.7 Billion, Driven By Online, NFT Sales
Having seen sales collapse by a third in the previous year because of the initial crisis caused by the pandemic, sales soared between June...
The Strange Saga Of Ozy Media Continues: We’re Not Shutting Down
“Last week was dramatic, it was difficult. At the end of the week we did suspend operations with a plan to wind down,” Carlos...
Is Email The Worst Form Of Communication Ever?
Let’s start with what should be obvious: email is a bad way to communicate. There’s the way it gives license to verbiage, turning simple...
The Novel In A Time Of On-Demand Everything
If what fiction most essentially is for us is a volume of commodified time, one of the most notorious facts of contemporary literary life...
Orchestra Conductors: Old Guys Rule
Orchestra conductors appear to live longer than people in any other profession. Famous conductors of the past, then in an era when life expectancy...
The Privilege Of Making Mediocre Art
It’s a common topic of conversation among creatives of color: Can we afford to make mediocre art? Black, brown, Indigenous, East Asian and South...
The Moms Selling Creepy Pictures Of Teen Ballerinas
She tried to defend herself by saying that she was “creating art,” and insisting that her daughter was “simply taking beautiful sporty poses in...
Afghan Art Is Going Underground
Now the Islamists are back in power, and Afghan artists and filmmakers — many who flourished during the past two decades — are scrambling to...
Philadelphia Public Orchestra: Reinventing How Orchestras Work
Ari Benjamin Meyers explains that part of his inspiration for the public orchestra came from the lesser-known Fellini film Orchestra Rehearsal, in which the orchestra...
How Do We Justify Touring Orchestras When It Worsens Climate Change?
I'm increasingly uncomfortable with attending concerts "interpreted by these internationally-touring orchestras when I realize that at least 80 people took a plane for a...
Yale Historian Resigns Citing Inappropriate Donor Influence
Beverly Gage, a historian of 20th-century politics who has led the program since 2017, has resigned, saying the university failed to stand up for...
The Classics Versus Racism
The study of classics should not make anyone feel ashamed because Asia intersects there, India intersects there, Africa intersects there, the Middle East intersects...
From Sistema To The Montreal Symphony’s New Music Director: Meet Rafael Payare
Winding up in the local El Sistema orchestra, he became a conductor almost by accident when handed a baton and told to conduct a...
The Age Of The New Literary Memoir
The fantasy that you can say something so perfectly and with such absolute authority that it never needs another version told from another point...
What Harvard Learned From The Pandemic
Those 17 months—marked by the pandemic, remote teaching, protests against systemic racism and police brutality, and economic hardship for millions of people—made it clear...
How Public Radio Could Help Save Local News
With a vast network of local licensees spread across urban and small-town America, public media stations should serve local audiences and provide a window...
Translating Proteins Into Music
We’re computational biologists who believe that hearing the sound of life at the molecular level could help inspire people to learn more about biology and the computational...
What Is The Solidarity Arts Economy?
Why should culture and economic innovation go together? Because, right now, we have a superstar system in which the winners take all and the...
Seattle Art Museum Appoints Constance Rice As Board Chair
The museum believes she is the first Black woman to chair a board of a major art museum, besides ethnic art museums, in the...
Why All Those Blobby Book Covers?
This design trend, well into its third or fourth year in the major publishing houses, has attracted plenty of nicknames and attendant discourse online—culture...
Jonathan Franzen And His Evil Twin
Sometimes it seems like there are two people called Jonathan Franzen: the successful, acclaimed novelist, and his evil twin. This can be the only...
How Our Brains Prioritize Urgency Over Importance
The “mere urgency effect” describes our tendency to prioritize tasks we perceive as time-sensitive over tasks that aren’t time-sensitive, even when the rewards of the non-time-sensitive...
America As Internet Meme (What Could Go Wrong?)
The ultimate joke of Americancore might be that sense of disillusionment. - The New Yorker
Are Theatre Critics Being Too Kind?
Emerging from its forced hibernation for live performance, theater appears to be in trouble, so our compassionate reviewers/publicists/reporters feel duty bound to come to...
Science Why It’s Difficult To Enjoy Success
We know from research that purchasing an experience leads to more enduring happiness than purchasing a possession. But a study from Cornell found that this bias...