Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Honest Brokers And The Clement Greenberg Problem
Greenberg had made it clear that the single most lucrative move for a modern-day critic was to announce the newest new thing, the coming...
BBC Chief Says Culture Wars Make It More Difficult To Be Impartial
"I think the culture wars are raging, I think we've got a real battle on our hands. I walk a tightrope every day on...
Picasso’s Daughter Pays French Taxes With Nine Artworks
“It is an honour for our country to welcome these new artworks by Picasso. They will enrich and deepen our cultural heritage." - ARTnews
What Will Happen To Online Performances When We’re Back In Theatres?
‘We’ve had thousands of years to get good at but virtual connection is new, and we need to do some interrogation of the...
Has Philosophy Really Been Replaced By Science?
A perennial favorite of this alleged replacement of philosophy with science is the claim that, while philosophers haven’t been able to really get ahead...
Why Do We Refer To Some Composers With Only Their Last Name?
Who gets last-name-only treatment and who requires a full identification is a weightier, more politically fraught question than it might initially seem. - San Francisco...
Inside The New Academy Movie Museum
While the May Co. building will be celebrated as a fine work of adaptive reuse, what will ultimately define the Academy Museum is its...
New Movie Academy Museum Succeeds At Celebrating Movies The Oscars Don’t
Perhaps the most notable alcoves of the Academy Museum are those where it resists the obvious, or at least takes a break from celebrating...
Disney CEO: World Is Changing For Talent Contracts
The problem, Bob Chapek said, is that the company has found itself grappling with talent contracts that were struck three or four years ago...
Signature LA: The Richard Neutra Houses
Their stories say something deeper about Neutra’s achievement, which has less to do with stylish surfaces than with underlying rhythms—the search for a shelter...
Why Podcasts Are So Popular (As A Medium)
New research finds that of all media, podcast content generates the greatest degree of consumer concentration. - Inside Radio
It’s A Weird Time To Be A Critic
The instinct to abuse critics is justified by the idea that it is “punching up” at elitist gatekeepers. But unlike Siskel and Ebert, modern...
The Next Era: The “Exponential Age”
The Exponential Age is challenging our assumptions about globalization. A car can be designed in Guiyang and assembled in California with remarkable ease. But...
More Governments Are Censoring Online Content
Governments are limiting or banning applications, content and connectivity itself — and Big Tech companies, rich and powerful as they are, can't or won't...
The News Shared On Facebook Gets Smaller And Smaller
The percent that are about news — defined broadly, including sports and entertainment — is now somewhere less than 4%. It’s something of a niche...
Pennsylvania School District Bans Children’s Books On MLK And Rosa Parks
In a clip from a meeting aired by CNN, which reported on student protests of the ban, members referred to the list of reading and...
Clearing Up Simplicity: The Fallacies Of Occam’s Razor
Cited widely in science, but often misunderstood, for some it’s invaluable, hinting at profound truths about the nature of knowledge. For others it’s worse...
Scientists Have Created The Whitest White Ever
Their original goal was to create a paint that would effectively reflect sunlight away from a building, which required producing an extremely white pigment. -...
Do You Know About #DarkAcademia?
On Instagram, the tag #darkacademia now has over 1 million posts, and Grazia has named the aesthetic as autumn 2021’s biggest trend. The TikTok generation has keenly...
“Pre-Saving” Music And What That Really Means
When you pre-save a song, it may look like the service you use, like Spotify, is the one requesting information about your account. But...
Nigel Kennedy Pulls Out Of Albert Hall Concert After ClassicFM Won’t Let Him Play...
Kennedy said the “culturally prejudiced” decision amounted to “musical segregation”, with the station he now calls “Jurassic FM” preferring him to play Vivaldi’s Four...
Fourteen Takeaways From This Year’s Emmys
The good, the bad, and the really long and bizarre. - Washington Post
What Does It Mean To Wrap The Arc De Triomphe?
Sebastian Smee: "Wrapping a triumphal arch is a way of creating something beautiful that also says: Enough with your delusions of grandeur. Away with...
Thomas Mann And The Case For Keeping Politics Out Of Art
Thomas Mann was not wrong to worry over democracy’s tendency to enlist art for its own ends, and he was not wrong to call...
Research: Sexual Abuse Is Rife In The Music Industry
Harassment, abuse and violence take place at all levels of the industry – from grassroots DIY scenarios to corporate setups. Even those scenes that...