Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Art Restorers And The Art Thieves
“Behind every antiquities trafficking ring preying upon cultural heritage for profit, there is someone reassembling and restoring these looted pieces to lend the criminal...
The Curious Case Of The Misbegotten Couple Who Started An American National Ballet
“Was the dream ever real?” asked ANB’s erstwhile artistic director, Rasta Thomas. “Or did I really get hoodwinked?” - Vanity Fair
Afghanistan’s All-Female Orchestra Goes Dark
Formed in 2014, it became a global symbol of the freedom many Afghans began to enjoy in the 20 years since the Taliban last...
Does The Art World Still Have A Sense Of Humor?
Red tape and regulations have largely put paid to a congenial and very possibly no-less-profitable art world, as has the workload in oppressed, ever-leaner...
Study: Crowd-Sourced Fact-Checking Is Pretty Accurate
The study found that with a group of just eight laypeople, there was no statistically significant difference between the crowd performance and a given...
Why Big-Name Writers Are Signing On With Substack
Writers flirting with the Substack idea would be better seen in footballing terms: they are probably going out on loan from their existing publishers,...
Judge Sentences Right-Wing Extremist To Read Classics
"Start with Pride And Prejudice and Dickens's A Tale Of Two Cities. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Think about Hardy. Think about Trollope. "On January 4...
China Bans “Effeminate Men” From TV
Previously, the regime has expressed official concerns and cracked down on youth online gaming, boy band culture, gambling, cryptocurrency and sports. The moves are...
SAG-AfTRA Elects New Leaders
Fran Drescher has been elected president of SAG-AFTRA and, in a split decision, her opponent’s running mate, Joely Fisher, has been elected national secretary-treasurer....
NYC To Consider Repealing Cabaret Ban On Dancing
Legislation proposed on Aug. 26 by Adams and New York City Council Members Keith Powers and Mark Levine would “end the city’s zoning laws...
The Happy, Sad Life Of Painter Bob Ross
The sad end of the Bob Ross story is just not as compelling as its joyful beginning and middle. - The New Republic
Just How Paranoid Is LA MoCA? (A Lot!)
At the end of the day Wednesday, a museum email arrived in my inbox with the almost-but-not-quite-news — along with a certifiably crazy list...
Meet LA MoCA’s Next Director
Joanna Burton joined the Wexner in early 2019 after its longtime director, Sherri Geldin, retired. In May, she hired Kelly Kivland away from the...
YouTube Music Surprises – Now Has 50 Million Subscribers
While global market leader Spotify still has a healthy lead — its most recent total paid subscribers was around 165 million, announced earlier this...
Fortnite Suspends Dance Moves In MLK Tribute Game After Racist Emotes
The March Through Time experience launched August 26, recreating the Lincoln Memorial and US National Mall where King delivered the speech, and incorporated informational exhibits and...
A Kids’ Battle Of The Books Program That Has Them Eager To Put Away...
Every year for the past six years Hepburn Penny has organized a Battle of the Books program that sees kids between the ages of eight...
Architects Use Video Gaming Tools To Explain Projects
"We see games as a tool for engagement, for connecting people thinking about how they can become collaborative design environments." - Dezeen
The Surprisingly Big Business Of Library E-Book Lending
The burst in digital borrowing has helped many readers, but it has also accelerated an unsettling trend. Books, like music and movies and TV...
How Digital Tech Will Kill Nation States (A History)
If we want to figure out how network technologies like Internet and Blockchain will change the world, we need to understand how the nature...
Consolidation: Four Prominent Galleries Join Up Under One Roof
In joining forces, the foursome are betting they will be more effective together than separately at a time when the gallery sector has seen a...
Did That Robot Look At Me Funny?
It has long been known that making eye contact with a robot can be an unsettling experience. Scientists even have a name for the...
How Social Media Has Ruined Art?
The public sphere has been replaced with emotional outbursts and opportunities for consumption. Museums have followed suit, relinquishing their mission to enlighten and challenge the public...
How Do We Get Beyond A Rush To Judgment?
The modern online public sphere, a place of rapid conclusions, rigid ideological prisms, and arguments of 280 characters, favors neither nuance nor ambiguity. -...
Collector Buys Fake Banksy NFT
The piece did enough to convince a buyer – confusingly named Pranksy – to pay the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds only...
About That Basquiat Painting in Tiffany Blue…
Basquiat died in 1988 at 27, but in the last few days all sorts of people with various relationships to both him and his work...