Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How AI Will Be (Is) Wrecking The Internet
LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader. Type how to fix broken headlight into a search engine, and it returns a...
John McWhorter Writes That Sounds Of Protest Preclude John Cage Performance. But…
For people familiar with Cage’s work, McWhorter’s argument appeared antithetical to the spirit of “4’33.” Cage’s conception of silence, though heavily and often debated,...
Literary Critic Helen Vendler, 90
In an era dominated by poststructuralist and politically influenced literary criticism, Ms. Vendler, who taught at Harvard for more than 30 years, adhered to...
Cincinnati Symphony Picks A New Music Director
Romanian conductor Christian Macelaru, who holds prestigious posts in Europe, leading both the Orchestre National de France and the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, Germany,...
Rise Of The Dumbphone
The growing dumbphone fervor may be motivated, in part, by the discourse around child safety online. Parents are increasingly confronted with evidence that sites like Instagram...
Lost Klimt Painting Sells For $32M
It was commissioned by a family of Jewish industrialists in 1917, a year before Klimt's death. However, there are many unanswered questions about the...
Four Finalists For This Year’s Turner Prize
The Turner Prize carries a £25,000 purse; shortlisted artists will be awarded £10,000. The Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain opens on September 25...
NPR CEO Responds To Bias Charges
“All of this frankly is a bit of a distraction relative to the transformation our organization needs to undergo in order to best serve...
Why Disney Is Spending $60 Billion On Theme Park Expansion
Why the massive investment? At a time when Disney faces revenue challenges due to cord cutting, streaming wars and a slower film box office,...
Prospects For Journalist: Low Pay, Few Jobs
Our findings show that the vast majority of “primary occupation” freelancers (those who spend more than 50% of their time on freelancing) earn less...
How Breakdancing Got Into The Paris Olympics
Bizarrely, Paris 2024 may well be the only time we will see breaking in the Olympics in the foreseeable future, although the World DanceSport...
Why Did Oxford University Shutter Its Future Of Humanity Institute?
Nick Bostrom – who popularized the theory that humanity may be living in a simulation, one that Musk often repeats – spoke about the...
Venice Biennale Gets Its Groove Back
Somehow, this grand festival of creativity has vitality, often substance, and a sense of context wider than the usual web of art-world connections and...
Houston’s Rothko Chapel Starts Big Expansion Project
Over the next two years, the site will see construction of an administration and archives building, a new program center, a guest bungalow for...
First Prize In This Year’s Venice Biennale
The exhibition’s top prizes both went to Indigenous artists, with the Golden Lion for the main curated exhibition going to the Mataaho Collective, which consists...
Why Many Of Us Are Going Back To Pre-Digital Analog Tools
From vinyl records to film cameras, all manner of apparently written-off technologies have been making a comeback, including modular synthesizers – one of the earliest types...
On The Influence Of Small Magazines And Big Ideas
Another meaning of the word “magazine” is a store of munitions. My own addition to the arsenal of the free press, Standpoint, was founded in...
The Women Who’ve Founded Dance Companies In The US Since 1929
“Keeping track of these female-founded ballet companies is vital in understanding the pivotal and often unknown role of women in shaping the American ballet...
Fatal Error: Universities Have Stopped Teaching HOW To Think
Modern education concentrates on teaching subjects, leaving the method of thinking, arguing, and expressing one’s conclusions to be picked up by the scholar as...
The Last Small Town Movie Critic (Great Read)
"He fulfilled his dreams, save for being Spider-Man. He wanted to write and direct plays and movies. He wanted to do stand-up comedy. He...
Publishers Have Found An Interesting Way To Fight Children’s Book Bans
Publishers, writers, and progressive organizations across the children’s book industry aren’t letting the book bans hold them back. Instead, they’re turning the bans into...
Actors Unions Make Deal For “Ethical Use” Of AI Voices
The deal also sets a minimum rate for AI replication of session singers’ voices, in the amount of three “sides” per project. (A “side”...
Things We Learned From The World’s Largest Music Company’s Annual Report
Much of the publication obviously focuses on UMG’s extraordinarily successful 2023: A year in which it posted USD $12 billion in total revenues, with annual adjusted EBITDA just north...
Tending To The Legacy Of Dance Theatre Of Harlem
“Moving the organization forward would depend not only on the art that the company produced, but also on the legacy through its alumni. And...
The Toll That Questioning Someone’s Authority Takes
Growing research shows regular exposure to even relatively subtle prejudice and discrimination degrades physical and mental health, leading to outcomes like high blood pressure, chronic...