Author: Douglas McLennan

How Did Contemporary Art Get To Be Blockbuster Art?

“In this environment, with museum directors under pressure to boost attendance, Holbein loses out to Damien Hirst, Manet to Christian Marclay, Braque to Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Klee to Jeff Koons. Even museums whose collections extend back to the ancients are stressing contemporary art. In the past few years, some museum directors and fundraisers have told me that it has become difficult to find money for exhibitions displaying what some are now calling ‘pre-contemporary art’. Sponsors, be they corporations, foundations or individuals, are simply uninterested. This is, as one art dealer remarked to me, like losing Mozart.”

The Problem Of Thinking That Consciousness Is A Scientific Question

“The spectacular advances of modern science have generated a mindset that makes potential limits to scientific inquiry intuitively difficult to grasp. Again and again we are given examples of seemingly insurmountable problems that yield to previously unimaginable answers. Just as some physicists believe we will one day have a Theory of Everything, many cognitive scientists believe that consciousness, like any physical property, can be unraveled. Overlooked in this optimism is the ultimate barrier: The nature of consciousness is in the mind of the beholder, not in the eye of the observer.”

Arundhati Roy Has A New Novel (If That’s What You Can Call It)

“More than a novel, this book wants to be an offering. It isn’t concerned with the conventional task (or power) of fiction to evoke the texture and drama of consciousness. Instead, it acts like a companion piece to Roy’s political writings—collected in books such as The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001) and Walking With the Comrades (2011). It tours India’s fault lines, as Roy has, from the brutal suppression of tribal populations to the 2002 pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat.”

Charles Isherwood: It’ll Take More Than A Weak “Julius Caesar” To Critique Trump

“I attended a small rally supporting the Public Theater at Astor Place on Thursday, and then headed uptown to see the production about which so much digital ink has been spilled. I left in a state of some dejection. As many critics and Eustis himself have naturally pointed out, “Julius Caesar” is hardly a play that advocates the assassination of overweening political leaders. In turning to violent means, the assassins destroy themselves, and Rome’s already endangered democracy. Blood begets blood, and, as in many Shakespeare plays, the stage ends up littered with corpses of Romans noble and otherwise. But there is a bit of sophistry involved in critics’ defending the production on the basis of the complexity of Shakespeare’s play and the ideas about rulership and politics it embodies.”

American Quilting Has Been Dragged Into A Political Muck-Fest

“The traditional American hobby has – like knitting, baking and other skills – been given a new lease of life by social media, through Reddit discussions, online commerce and the ease of spreading tips and knowledge via digital videos. But in recent weeks, online communities and bloggers have been discussing a series of screenshots which appear to show socially conservative quilters organising campaigns and hurling insults about other enthusiasts who don’t share their political beliefs.”

Flap Over The Public’s “Julius Caesar” Shows We Have Even Bigger Problems

“On one level, the corporate corruption of the arts is obvious. There is inevitably pressure on stage companies to police what political dramas (if any) they will or will not stage. (Seen any plays that question the value of the unfettered free market lately?) But the corruption also takes a subtler, more soul-destroying form, which is being ignored or minimized. For example, mainstream commentators are, as usual, missing the more insidious point of the Julius Caesar fracas, wallowing in the surface issues, content to indulge in silly finger-pointing and self-serving postures of defiance.”

Residents Of Dover Protest Removing Banky’s Anti-Brexit Mural

“The Dover Banksy is an iconic artwork. Our town is the gateway and guardian of the nation—and on the frontline of Brexit,” he said in reference to the mural’s highly significant location, adjacent to ferry terminal that connects the UK with continental Europe. “Dover is this Banksy’s rightful home,” he continued, “to demolish it would be a crime against culture.”