Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Collector Gives $300 Million Collection To Seattle University
Richard Hedreen, 88, is gifting his entire collection, comprising more than 200 artworks and estimated to be worth about $300 million, to Seattle University....
Is Social Relevance At The Core Of The Arts?
Thanks to Arts Council England’s recently published analysis on opera and music theatre, ‘relevance’ is back on the agenda. But the report and its...
Cincinnati Ballet Gets A New Leader After a Year Of Upheaval
Artistic director Jodie Gates left after just 14 months on the job, followed six days later by then-president and CEO Scott Altman announcing that he would...
“Bayadère” Is Awash In Cultural Appropriation. Should It Be Canceled?
Like so many of the 19th century ballets, it has been subject to some controversy in recent years. Set in a fanciful Hindu temple, choreographed...
UNESCO Ponders How To Preserve Intangible Cultural Heritage
unesco is best known for its prestigious list of World Heritage sites. But its most interesting endeavor might be a survey of humanity’s cultural practices. -...
The Guernica Magazine Mess – An Essay About The Israel Military Action Roils Staff
The magazine, once a prominent publication for fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction, with a focus on global art and politics, quickly found itself imploding as...
Gabriel García Márquez Didn’t Want His Last Book Published. This Week It Was. Is...
The novel was published this week, unleashing a backlash from scholars, writers and fans who’ve taken exception not with the novel itself, but rather...
A Competition For Playing Chopin? It Has No Credibility
Giving marks to people playing a Chopin polonaise is no different from deciding on medals in gymnastics, dressage and judo at the Olympic Games,...
Are Auction Sales Guarantees Fair?
How does this practice affect the market? The art market is self-regulating, and since 2010 the practice of offering works at auction with third-party...
Post-Pandemic: Broadway Attendance Down, Also Movies, But Pop Concerts And Orchestras Up And Museums...
The Philadelphia Orchestra is averaging 78 percent attendance so far this season, compared with 63 percent before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic is...
Historical Movies Like “Oppenheimer” Shape Historical Records. We Should Be Clear How
With Oppenheimer having received so much commercial, critical and Academy success, we have an opportunity to think about critical criteria for viewing historical film — and...
What AI Is Learning About What Life Is
While some skeptics think the models are going to hit a wall, more optimistic scientists believe that foundation models will even tackle the biggest...
Today’s Journalists Come From A Different Economic Class. Here’s How It Changes Their Work
Contemporary journalists have a relationship to ideas that is more or less the opposite of the old school’s. It begins before they even get...
UK Study: 2023 Audiences Rebounded From The Pandemic
Overall tickets sales in 2023 were 101% of what they were in 2019, the last complete year of data before Covid. More than half...
AI Researchers Warn They’re Being Priced Out
Fei-Fei Li is at the forefront of a growing chorus of academics, policymakers and former employees who argue the sky-high cost of working with...
Amateur Ballerina Held By Russia After $50 Donation To Ukraine Charity
Russian authorities apparently accessed Ksenia Karelina’s phone and discovered she had donated approximately $50 to Razom, a pro-Ukrainian charity, in 2022. - The Guardian
If We’re So Polarized, What Is The Culpability Of Technology?
So what is the ideology of the Internet? An optimist might invoke the idea of democratization, pointing to the medium’s ability to amplify otherwise...
Editor William Whitworth’s Outsized Influence On The Atlantic Magazine
Bill was a mentor to two generations of writers—writers of narrative reporting, primarily, but also novelists, biographers, intellectuals, essayists, and humorists. He expanded The Atlantic’s...
Why Theatre Resonates: What A 19th Century Ibsen Play Has To Say About Today
It would be challenging to find a 19th century drama that speaks as directly to our pandemic-scarred society as this one. - Los Angeles...
Arnold Schoenberg’s Hollywood
He played tennis with George Gershwin, who idolized him. He delighted in the American habits of his children, who, to the alarm of other...
Yerba Buena CEO Quits After Controversy
Sara Fenske Bahat’s departure follows weeks of turmoil at the center. After artists Jeffrey Cheung and Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo alleged that YBCA prevented them from...
UNESCO Talks About Protecting Intangible Cultural Heritage
The Unesco convention defines intangible cultural heritage as: “Practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated...
NY Times Co-Chief Art Critic To Retire After 32 Years, 4,500 Reviews
Roberta Smith started freelancing for The New York Times in 1986, after writing for Art in America and The Village Voice, and after a...
Proposed Law To Increase Streaming Royalty To A Penny A Stream
Streaming has grown to represent 84 percent of recorded music industry revenue, but that Spotify, the leading music streaming platform, only pays an average...
Those Round-Up Purchase Donations Have Added Up To Be Big Money
In 2022 alone, charities raised $749 million nationwide through so-called point-of-sale donations, a 24% jump from 2020, according to Engage for Good, which tracks...