Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
French Court Rules Ravel Was the Only Composer Of “Bolero”
The heirs of Alexandre Benois, a celebrated stage designer who worked on the original performance of "Bolero", argued that he should have been credited...
What Ron Desantis Did To The Arts In Florida
"First of all, the legislature had already reduced the budget from $60 million to $30 million. But $30 million in the budget of the...
Getting Real With Art (What Matters)
The Real that art helps us come into contact with is something far more slippery, and far closer to what Walter Benjamin called the...
Small NYC Museums Are Closing
Over the past few years, attendance levels fell and fund-raising efforts slowed as overhead costs and employee salaries rose. Many museums are doing fewer exhibitions...
Why America’s Tallest Building Will Be In Oklahoma
Legends Tower recently gained approval from the city to have an unlimited height, and after a series of changes, the skyscraper is now slated...
NYC Rescinds $58M In Public Library Cuts; Libraries Will Reopen on Sundays
The cuts to the more than 200 library branches had become a political thorn in the mayor’s side. In the weeks leading up to...
YouTube Is Now Beating Netflix In The Streaming Wars
YouTube made up nearly 10% of all viewership on connected and traditional TVs in the U.S. in May, according to Nielsen. Netflix ranked second,...
Kehinde Wiley’s Accusers Address Censorship Concerns
Kehinde Wiley’s accusers have responded to concerns raised by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) regarding museums’ decisions to rescind exhibitions of the artist’s...
Before And After AI (Beyond Mythologies)
Should we trust the most optimistic voices coming from Silicon Valley, AI could be the vehicle we use to create boundless wealth, cure all...
Three San Francisco Music Institutions Face Big Change, Bigger Challenges
All venues were full. All audiences I joined were infectiously rapt. Yet everywhere I went there was an inescapable feeling of doom, of disquieting...
What The Voices Of AI Tell Us
Artificial intelligence stands accused of devastating the creative industries, guzzling energy and even threatening human life. Understandably, OpenAI wants a voice that makes people feel...
Young People Are Quitting Dating Apps And Figuring Out How To Meet At Real...
“Because of social media and dating apps, our generation has been spoon-fed in a lot of ways when it comes to meeting people. We’re...
Montreal Has A Unique Culture. Gentrification Is A Threat
Montreal’s role as a multilingual cultural hub—attracting talent from across the country and around the world in music, theatre, literature, dance, and even the...
How Gypsy Traditions Shaped UK Music
The lack of recognition of Gypsy and Traveller contributions to Scottish, Irish or English music styles effectively excludes these ethnic minorities from narratives of Britishness....
We Sell Art As Fame, Fame As Art. It’s Really About Market Share
Of course, Gen Xers always knew this would happen: the gradual folding of everything that could possibly be called “culture” into one image-spectacle-and-sensorium corporate...
Despairing Of The Election? Look To The Iliad
Maybe you can relate to my mood: I want this election season over with. I have no more outrage left to give, yet there...
Calgary’s Arts Commons Gets The Largest Philanthropic Gift In Canadian Performing Arts History
The downtown Calgary cultural hub has been raising funds for a $660-million transformation, which will see its existing facility upgraded, a new building added and the...
Why Some People Bloom Later In Life
Why do some people hit their peak later than others? In his book Late Bloomers, the journalist Rich Karlgaard points out that this is really...
LLM Models Show Biases Broadly Embedded Across Languages
"The data show that implicitly-measured attitudes are revealed in and perhaps reinforced by language, which is a key vehicle of transmitting culture. If we...
Why Music Labels Are Suing New AI Music Generators
The RIAA’s lawsuits use lofty language, saying that this litigation is about “ensuring that copyright continues to incentivize human invention and imagination, as it...
Brooks: Creativity Might Be A Solution For Depression
Research in neuroscience and psychology reveals that active engagement in creative pursuits is an effective way to see the world in a more positive...
Paramount Purges Access To Decades Of Shows Across Multiple Networks
Comedy Central, CMT, Paramount Network, TV Land, and MTV sites now point visitors to the streaming platform, effectively removing vast archives of content from...
The Decline Of Criticism Is Not The Fault Of Critics
Reflecting on our work—the theories, the methods, the artworks—has devolved into a strained bleating about our “relevance” and “value.” Criticism has become, in a...
Confusing Artists With “Creatives”
he first entry of “creativity” in a dictionary dates to 1966. This current trend of using “creativity” as corporate-speak is not a distortion of...
Generative AI Will Change How Information Is Retrieved And Shared
Although this may seem like media arcana—mere C-suite squabbles—the reality is that AI companies are envisioning a future in which their platforms are central...