RECODINGS Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics RECODINGS Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics H A L FOSTER Bay Press Seattle, Washington © 1985 Hal Foster A ll rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. First edition published in 1985. Second printing 1987. Bay Press 990 Alaskan Way Seattle, WA 98104 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Foster, Hal. Recodings — art, spectacle, cultural politics. Includes bibliographic references and index. 1. Postmodernism. 2. Avant-garde (aesthetics) — H istory — 20th century. 3. Politics in art. 4. Arts and society — History — 20th century. I. Title. NX456.5. P66F67 1985 700\1’0385-70184 ISBN 0-941920-03-8 ISBN 0-941920-04-6 (pbk.) Caledonia type set by Walker & Swenson, Port Townsend, Washington For Sandy Tait Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 I. SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS Against Pluralism 13 Between Modernism and the Media 33 The Expressive Fallacy 59 Contemporary Art and Spectacle 79 Subversive Signs 99 II. (POSTMODERN POLEMICS (Post)Modem Polemics 121 For a Concept of the Political in Contemporary Art 139 Readings in Cultural Resistance 157 The “Primitive” Unconscious of Modem Art, or W hite Skin Black Masks 181 Notes 211 Index 235 Published in the last five years, these essays appear here in revised form. My debt to the artists and critics addressed in them is enormous, and I hope my citations w ill suffice as acknowledge­ ments. Certainly the project in which they are involved — a critical consideration of contemporary and modern culture — is too impor­ tant to neglect. As for editors, I must mention my friends at A r t in A m erica, in particular Elizabeth Baker, Nancy Marmer and Craig Owens, all of whom helped me to sharpen these texts in many ways. Thanks also to Jonathan Crary and Charlie W right for their critical readings of some of the essays, and to Thatcher Bailey for his insightful editing of them all. The National Endow­ ment for the Arts supported this project with a 1985 critics grant. Sandy Tait supported its w riter in every other way. Credits Versions o f these essays have appeared previously: ‘Against Pluralism/* A rt in America (January 1982), originally titled “The Problem of Pluralism/* “Between Modernism and the Media/* A rt in America (Sum­ m er 1982). “The Expressive Fallacy.** A rt in America (January 1983). “Contemporary Art and Spectacle.** A rt in America (A p ril 1983), originally titled “The Art of Spectacle.** “ Subversive Signs.** A rt in America (November 1982). “(Post)Modem Polemics.** New German Critique 33 (Fall 1984) and Perspecta 21 (1984). “For a Concept of the Political in Contemporary Art.** A r t in Am erica (April 1984), originally titled “For a Concept of the Politi­ cal in Art.** “The ‘Primitive* Unconscious of Modem Art, or White Skin Black Masks.** O ctober 34 (Fall 1985). Photography Credits Baskerville + Watson Gallery, New York: Sherrie Levine after Egon Schiele (Self Portrait Masturbating), p. 58, after Walker Evans, p. 167, and U n title d , p. 174. Rene Block Gallery, New York: Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me, p. 22. Irving Blum Gallery, Los Angeles: Andy Warhol, C am pbell Soupcans (detail), p. 165. Mary Boone Gallery, New York: A. R. Penck, Ereignis in N.Y., p. 47; Jean-Michel BasQuiat, In Ita lia n , p. 50; David Salle, Seeing S ight, p. 57, and Brother Animal, p. 135; Matt Mullican, U n title d , p. 75; Julian Schnabel, The E xile , p. 135. Leo Castelli Gallery, New York: Robert Morris, I Box (open), p. 12, and U n title d , p. 97; Donald Judd, U n title d , p. 21; Frank Stella, P ro tra cto r (Collection of Sears Bank and Trust Company), p. 21. Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York: Jenny Holzer, plaQue from the L iv in g series, Inflammatory Statements, and selection from Truism s, p. 116. Marion Goodman Gallery, New York: Gerhard Richter, Ohne T ite l (568-1), p. 65. Metro Pictures, New York: Walter Robinson, Phantom Firebug, p. 27; Thomas Lawson, D o n t H it H e r A gain, p. 55; Cindy Sher­ man, U n title d , p. 67; Jack Goldstein, U n title d , p. 78; Robert Longo, E m pire (detail), p. 85, Now Everybody, p. 89, Rock fo r L ig h t and We Want God, p. 94. Gallery Nature Morte, New York: Gretchen Bender, Revenge o f the Nerds, p. 75. Holly Solomon Gallery, New York: Ned Smythe, Drawing for The Tree o f Life (detail), p. 26. Sonnabend Gallery, New York: Vito Acconci, Raising the Dead (And Getting Laid Again), p. 165. Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York: Sandro Chia, Genova and Man and Vegetation, p. 43; Francesco Clemente, Three in One, Diego Cortez, Young Woman and Give W ait, p. 43; Gerhard R ichter, Ohne T ite l (568-1), p. 65. John Weber Gallery, New York: Victor Burgin, O lym pia (detail), p. 10; R obert Sm ithson, Map o f Broken Glass (Atlantis), p. 22; Hans Haacke, MetroMobiltan, p. 107. W illard Gallery, New York: Susan Rothenberg, Pontiac, p. 27. Victor Burgin. O ly m p ia (detail), 1982. Introduction The essays in this book present a constellation o f concerns about the lim its and myths of (post)modernism, the uses and abuses of historicism, the connections of recent art and architecture with media spectacle and institutional power, and the transformations of the avant garde and of cultural politics generally. As a hetero­ geneous text which for better or worse often takes on a negative cast, it may be easier to say what this book is not. Though it records one reading of recent developments in North American and West­ ern European art and criticism — specifically, the conjunction of (post)modemist art and (post)structuralist thought — it is not strictly a histo ry o r a theory (a telling distinction in any case). Nor is it meant to signal the close of any cultural moment (such closure is usually the critics own). However seduced I am by ideas of histor­ ical ruptures and epistemological breaks, cultural forms and economic modes do not simply die, and the apocalypticism of the present is finally complicit with a repressive status Quo. At the same time, the socioeconomic preconditions of the modem no longer obtain, at least not in original configuration, and many of the theoretical models of modernism and some of the “ great narra­ tives” of modernity are in doubt, at least as originally conceived (Jean-Frangois Lyotard cites these: “the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth.”)1 It may even be, as Theodor Adorno once remarked, that late-capitalist society is so 1 R E C O D IN G S irrational as to make any theory of its culture difficult. Yet rather than reject theory (on the grounds that it is always phallocratic — or simply useless) or refuse history (on the grounds that it is always exclusive — or simply irrelevant), one may argue the necessity of counter models and alternative narratives. And rather than cele­ brate (or mourn) the loss of this paradigm or that period, one may seek out new political connections and make new cultural maps (and perhaps, given the w ill to totality of capital, to “totalize" anew, from the “other" side, in such a way that these terms are transformed). Such a need is often expressed in these pages, but this book is no more blueprint than it is theory or history. Rather it is conceived, as in feet each essay was written, as a critical intervention in a complex (generally reactionary) present. Beyond this, I cannot be a very acute critic of my work, blind as I am to my blindnesses and insights alike. What is conflicted, repeated and disavowed in this book must remain obscure to me, which is to suggest that the critic, commonly mistaken as the reader who completes the artistic text, also writes to an other who supervises his meaning, and that his work also exists as a sign and a symptom, a specimen text of its time. Yet why then does the critic assume a privileged voice of truth, as if he alone can make of the cultural object a reflexive text? However much this voice is heard in these pages, my experience is finally the one suggested by Paul de Man: I do not demystify the work which I discuss so much as I am demystified by it.2 This is not to say that evaluation, critiQue or method is irrelevant to my project, but that for me the task of criticism is not primarily to judge its object aesthetically according to a more or less subjective taste or conservative norm, or to assess it for ideological probity according to a more or less predetermined political agenda (though I am aware of this ten­ dency); nor is it, as in humanist hermeneutics, to complete or enliven the object by interpretation (as if it were deficient or dead) or in structuralist fashion to (re)constitute it in a critical simulacrum that would clarify its logic.3 Rather, criticism for me enters with its object in an investigation of its own place and function as a cultural practice and in an articulation of other such psychosocial 2 INTRODUCTION representations; as it does so, it seeks to separate these practices critically and to connect them discursively in order to call them into crisis (which is after all what criticism means) so as to transform them . Thus rather than make a fetish of theory, it seems legitimate to me (though legitimacy is not the issue) to engage different objects with different tools as long as the critical specificity or "sectoral validity”4 of each method in the present is kept in mind.