Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How Bookstores Across America Are Taking On Book Bans
Perhaps no bookstore in America’s heartland better exemplifies a commitment to the freedom to read than Loudmouth Books, in Indianapolis. - Publishers Weekly
New Immersive Architecture Is Changing Our Urban Experience
"The distinction between theme parks and urban venues is rapidly dissolving" - Dezeen
New UK Culture Minister Says New Regulations For Streaming Are Necessary
“There’s a choice ahead of us, whether we choose to be the last guardians of this chapter, or whether we choose to be the...
Argentine Tango In Radical Reinventing
Today, fliers and social media posts use labels including “dissident tango” and “inclusive tango,” while a growing number of the nontraditional lessons and events...
Unknown Piece By Mozart Discovered
The piece dates to the mid to late 1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting about 12 minutes, the...
San Francisco Symphony Finds Few Fans For Its Present Course
"I continue to be struck by the fact that the current leadership of the San Francisco Symphony really has no defenders in any press:...
About 170 Layoffs At Atlantic Music As Streaming Levels Off
The streaming boom that lifted the music industry’s fortunes in the mid-2010s after years of decline has leveled off, — with the recorded-music industry posting just...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good Morning: No music company is as all-in on streaming as is Universal Music Group, the world's largest music producer. So the company's state-of-the-union...
The Slang Of The Victorian Era Was Surprising, Fresh
From the bizarre sense of humour apparent in their Christmas cards – depicting murderous frogs, mice riding lobsters, and even waltzing beetles – to the off-beat...
Exploring The Biology Of Radical Self-Delusion
We all suffer from delusions, and we all, like Oedipus, use tricks of self-deception to keep ourselves from acknowledging truths about our lives. Yet...
Manhattan DA Returns $8.3 Million Of Looted Antiquities To Turkey
The objects in question were linked to several ongoing investigations, among them, a trafficking network that systemically looted the ancient city of Bubon in...
The Imperative For Museums To Evolve Into Something New
For museums questioning how to make a sustained and long-term impact, the key factor is access. How do we define the public we’re aiming...
Broadway’s Signature Theatre Names A New Artistic Director
At Ars Nova, Emily Shooltz fostered the work of dozens of early-career playwrights the organization commissioned and developed for production, and over 100 others...
UK Arts Organizations Are Rejecting Corporate Funding. A Risky Strategy?
Could these increasingly messy call-outs and protests, personal attacks on social media and public decouplings result in an already woefully underfunded arts sector destroying...
San Francisco Symphony Facing Its Biggest Crisis Ever
The symphony believes one way to attract audiences is to showcase what few cities have, a one-of-a-kind performing arts scene, which also includes the...
Ace Auctioneer: 14 Factors That Make Art Valuable
"I have put together a list of 14 criteria that convey financial value to a work of art. While the first point is emotional, all...
Universal Music: Betting The Future On A Superfans Strategy
Streaming equalizes the monetization across all fans, despite the fact that superfans listen to music a few hours every day, and yet casual fans...
Universal Music Chief: Streaming Will Power Music Business For Years To Come
“Fact number one”, according to Grainge, is that “streaming has resulted in a quantum leap forward in music access and monetization and streaming will continue to...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: How do you measure value? Self-worth? Thea Lim wrestles with the tensions between internal value for an artist and external valuation, now...
The Booking System For Comedy Clubs Is Broken
In comparison to the theater, live comedy has recovered from the pandemic in great commercial shape. But with success comes the danger of insularity,...
The Digital Age And The Collapse Of Self-Worth
What we hardly talk about is how we’ve reorganized not just industrial activity but any activity to be capturable by computer, a radical expansion of what...
California’s New Laws Regulating Use Of AI Now In Force
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a handful of artificial intelligence-related bills that would give actors more protection over their digital likenesses and fight...
Hollywood’s Film And TV Business Is In Sharp Decline. What To Do?
Despite differences over solutions, there is a consensus on the problem: California is simply not competitive with many other states and countries that offer...
Delphine von Schauroth Was A Celebrated Child Prodigy In The Early 19th Century. Why Did...
The German virtuoso pianist and composer was hailed as a musical genius by critics for her powerful and inventive performances and her original and...
The Fights Over How To Teach Reading…
Improving literacy is urgent, but the “crisis” framing can encourage quick fixes over substantive change—and promote top-down solutions that exclude the perspectives of professionals...