What Comes After Farce

by Hal Foster

Surveying the artistic and cultural scene in the era of Trump

If farce follows tragedy, what follows farce? Where does the double predicament of a post-truth and post-shame politics leave artists and critics on the Left? How to demystify a hegemonic order that dismisses its own contradictions? How to belittle a political elite that cannot be embarrassed, or to mock party leaders who thrive on the absurd? How to out-dada President Ubu? And, in any event, why add outrage to a media economy that thrives on the same?
What Comes After Farce? comments on shifts in art, criticism, and fiction in the face of the current regime of war, surveillance, extreme inequality, and media disruption. A first section focuses on the cultural politics of emergency since 9/11, including the use and abuse of trauma, paranoia, and kitsch. A second group reviews the neoliberal makeover of art institutions during the same period. Finally, a third section surveys transformations in media as reflected in recent art, film, and fiction. Among the phenomena explored here are "machine vision" (images produced by machines for other machines without a human interface),"operational images" (images that do not represent the world so much as intervene in it), and the algorithmic scripting of information so pervasive in our everyday lives.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Theory, Essays

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2020

About the author

Hal Foster is a Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University specializing in 20th century art.

Note: for the comic book artist, see Harold "Hal" Foster.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good collection of art criticism I read to force myself to like reading again. Like usual, though Foster is great at cogently reconstructing and detailing the art and theories of his subjects, it's better to be familiar with them before reading (advice for myself). I particularly liked the 9/11 essay, the Koons and Marshall essays, the scathing critique of Steyerl and the last essay on the various models of the Real.

[Emily Davies (libraryofcalliope) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 “𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴” 𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘒𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢- 𝘢 “𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘺” 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦, 𝘢 “𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮” 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘢 “𝘸𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳” 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 “𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴” 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴.”
I love art. But I kind of hate the culture of Modern Art. The pretensions of intellect and gravity that smells rather like horseshit to those outside the Art World, the ‘deep messages’ and ‘challenges’ to society made only by those already rich enough to devote themselves to it full time... I hate it. This book houses a collection of essays about art and art criticism and some of them were some of the worst examples of what I mentioned above. But equally, some of them were what I love about art and art history. In the essay titled Underpainting, Foster discusses the work of artist Kerry James Marshall, and it was incredibly interesting reading about his mission to redress the imbalance of black people as the subject of paintings. I’ve since looked up his work and I love them. The way Foster discusses his work was really fascinating and created a good groundwork for me which I loved reading. So yeah, this collection was definitely a mixed bag. Some of them were brilliant, and some were pretentious questions asked of pretentious people, which to be fair, was to be expected.

[Анна · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much more heavily art-tinged than expected; nevertheless - an interesting read!

Just pay no mind to the opening and "Bush Kitsch" chapters for permitting the allowance of credence to the official story at all cuz like Bush literally did 9/11

[nin. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need both sides of “is/isn’t art political” debate to read this one first. also ngl this book opened my eyes to understanding contemporary art.

[Roud Faria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este livro consegue ser crítico sem ser pedante e nos abre para a possibilidade de ver movimentos do real refletidos na arte. O que mais chama a atenção é que, mais que uma crítica, ele é um convite a conhecer artistas e exposições ou pensá-los nas categorias impostas pelo nosso mundo de agora.

A minha dica é que o leitor, leia-o com o celular perto para buscar as exposições/ artistas/ instalações/ obras. É como fazer um tour inteligente analisando o que o olho consegue ver. Uma das grandes surpresas do ano para mim.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of essays of current critical theory on art and culture, so the writing is dense and definitely not narrative reading easily packaged for digestion

However, the content is top notch and feels like the cutting edge of art history, with critiques of Trumpism and complete embeddedness with a surveillance system seeming highly relevant. His critiques of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jeff Koons are both top notch.

Highly recommend for those interested in art history. Important text

[Alex Adamczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting take on kitsch in our contemporary trump / post trump world. A dive into the excellent work of forensic architecture, but that quickly passes. He spends more time on Koons since that fits into the commodification narrative, but isn’t the justice found in work by forensic architecture a way to break free from this trap that he depicts?

[bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

eu gosto do formato de diferentes escritos sobre diferentes temáticas compilados, acho que torna a leitura bem dinâmica. as partes I e II me impressionaram muito, as reflexões são super interessantes e as análises muito pertinentes, além de um repertório generoso de citações. a parte III não me convenceu tanto, salvo uma ou outra exceção, mas talvez seja só eu precisando estudar, o vocabulário e as referências me pareceram densos demais. autolembrete pra voltar ao texto “greve humana”, que virou com força uma chave na minha cabeça e quem sabe tenha transformado toda uma percepção de uma forma que eu ainda não sei dizer qual sobre algo que eu ainda não sei dizer o quê, mas que vou trabalhar pra descobrir.

[JP Beaty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good collection of contemporary art criticism. Some interesting ideas around notions of kitsch, and, weirdly enough, one of the clearer accounts of Agamben's state of exception I've read in any text. I think the first section discussing the current political moment through the prism of kitsch and conspiracy to the be the most compelling. Some of the third section discussing the machine and contemporary art went a little over my head, just because I am not super well informed on the subject. Overall some cool ideas, with a few essays I would come back to.

[kaio fialho · Rating 4 out of 5]

peguei do nada pra ler pra aprofundar artisticamente. alguns textos mais legais que outros. li meio estudando, pesquisando os artistas e conceitos, dai demorou mais. odeio como filosofos e criticos e teoricos formulam frases complicadas cheias de palavras que sao conceitos, e eu simplesmente tenho que acreditar e fingir que entendi…..

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF around pg 60. Boring and undercooked. Agamben's name is mentioned more than once, so you get an idea of the level of conceptual clarity/academic badinage. Not getting anything out of it.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is .. fine. Final section is also quite nice but it doesn’t really hang together as a collection tbh (not sure it delivers on the promises of the blurb either)

[amanda teixeira · Rating 3 out of 5]

muito bom, pena que hal foster é um chato

[James G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some times you felt like he was pulling the mower across the same fields over and over, but when this book is good, it reads like the truest words you’ve ever read.

[Sofia Paz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting but very hard to read if you don’t have a solid base of the concepts and philosophy of art criticism that are discussed in the book.

[Alicia]

the book is broken into many short (~10 pages) chapters, each an example of a different change to art, criticism, or the museum. foster translates critical theory into easy to understand terms, but i felt it moved far too quickly across topics and did not offer enough evidence or analysis.

[SY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foster, at his best in this book, manages to conceal the sharp edges of his most critical moments, so as to leave the reader with enough bandwidth to formulate her/his own opinion. But the chapter on Paul Chan was just so brutal (I'm a fan of Paul Chan's work, so OK, I'm probably biased...) At their most didactic, a lot of Foster’s claims could be summed up by a sort of one-liner truism that‘s actually, in the end, rather common-place, and there is not a single moment of doubt as he moves to unpack that one-liner. So, if you already agreed with Foster before you started, then, there is a satisfaction that comes from ‘finding out’ that you were right all along (and yay, a Princeton professor agrees with you). I much prefer the chapters that make me want to just run to the gallery to look at the art, and there are plenty of that too in this book.