Hal Foster (Art Critic)
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Hal Foster (art critic) This artic le is abou t the art crit ic and Prin ceto n prof esso r. For the comic strip artist, see Hal Foster. Harold Foss “Hal” Foster [1] (born August 13, 1955) is an American art critic and historian. He was educated at Princeton University, Columbia University, and the City University of New York. He taught at Cornell University from 1991 to 1997 and has been on the faculty at Prince- ton since 1997. In 1998 he received a Guggenheim Fel- lowship. Foster’s criticism focuses on the role of the avant-garde within postmodernism. In 1983, he e di ted The Anti- Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Cultur e, a seminal text in postmodernism. In Recodings (1985), he promoted a vision of postmodernism that simultaneously engaged its avant-garde history and commented on contemporary soci ety. In The Return of the Real (1996), he proposed a model of historical recurrence of the avant-garde in which each cycle would improve upon the inevitable fail- ures of previous cy cles. He views his roles as critic and historian of art as complementary rather than mutually opposed. 1 Ear ly lif e and edu cat io n Foster wa s bor n Au g. 13, 195 5, in Seattle, Washington. [2] His father was a partner in the law firm of Foster Pepper & Shefelman. [3] He attended Lakeside School in Seattle, where Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a classmate. [4] He graduated from Princeton in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Art History. [1] He received a Master of Arts in English from Columbia University in 1979. [2] He received his Ph.D. in art history from the City Uni- versity of New York in 1990, writing his dissertation on Surrealism under Rosalind Krauss. [5] 2 Career After graduating from Princeton, Foster moved to New York City, where he worked for Artforum from 1977 to 1981. He was then an editor at Art in America until 1987, when he bec ame Direc tor of Cri ti cal and Cur ato ri al Stu d- ies at the Whitney Museum. [2][5] In 1982, [6] a friend from Lakeside School founded Bay Press to publish The Mink’s Cry, a children’s book writ- ten by Foster. [3] In the foll owing ye ar Ba y Pr ess publ is he d The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, a col- lection of essays on postmodernism edited by Foster [7] that became a seminal text of postmodernism. [5] In 1985, Bay Press published Recodings , Foster’s first collec tion of essays. [5] The Anti-A esthetic and Recordings were, res pec- tively, Bay Press’s best and second best selling titles. [3] Foster found ed Zone in 1985 and was its editor until 1992. [8] In 1991, Foster left the Whitney [2] to join the faculty of Cornell University's Department of the History of Art. That same year, Foster became an editor of the journal October ; [5] he was still on the board as of 2011. [9] In 1997 he joined the faculty of his undergraduate alma mater, Princeton University, in the Department of Art and Archaeology. [5] In 2000 he became the Townsend Martin Professor of Art and Archaeo logy at Princeton. [8] He chaired the Department of Art and Archaeo logy from 2005 to 2009. [10] In September 2011 he was appointed to the search committee to find a new dean for Prince- ton’s School of Architecture. [11] He is a faculty fellow of Wilson College. [12] Foster received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998. [13] In 2010 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [14] and awarded the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing by the Clark Art Insti- tute. [8] Spring 2011 he won a Berlin Prize fellowship of the American Academy in Berlin. [15] In 2013-14 he was appointed practitioner in residence at Camberwell Col- lege of Arts in London. 3 Cri ti ci sm In his int rod uc tio n to The Anti-Ae sthetic , Fos ter des crib ed a dist inc tion betw een comp lic ity with and res istan ce to capitalism within postmodernis m. [7] The book in- clu ded cont ribu tion s by Jean Baud rilla rd, Dou glas Crimp, Kenneth Frampton, Jürgen Habermas, Fredri c Jame- son, Rosalind Krauss, Craig Owens, Edward Saïd, and Gregory Ulmer. [16] In Recodings (1985), Foster focused on the role of the avant-garde within postmodernis m. He advocated a post- modernism that engages in both a continuation of its his- torical roots in the avant-garde and contemporary social and political critique, in opposition to what he saw as a “pluralistic” impulse to abandon the avant-garde in fa- vor of more aestheticall y traditional and commerciall y viable mode s. He promote d artists he saw as exempli- 1
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Hal Foster (art critic)
This article is about the art critic and Princeton professor.For the comic strip artist, see Hal Foster .
Harold Foss “Hal” Foster [1] (born August 13, 1955) isan American art critic and historian . He was educated atPrinceton University , Columbia University , and the CityUniversity of New York . He taught at Cornell Universityfrom 1991 to 1997 and has been on the faculty at Prince-ton since 1997. In 1998 he received a Guggenheim Fel-lowship .
Foster’s criticism focuses on the role of the avant-gardewithin postmodernism . In 1983, he edited The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture , a seminal textin postmodernism . In Recodings (1985), he promoteda vision of postmodernism that simultaneously engagedits avant-garde history and commented on contemporarysociety. In The Return of the Real (1996), he proposeda model of historical recurrence of the avant-garde inwhich each cycle would improve upon the inevitable fail-ures of previous cycles. He views his roles as critic andhistorian of art as complementary rather than mutuallyopposed.
1 Early life and education
Foster was born Aug. 13, 1955, in Seattle , Washington .[2]
His father was a partner in the law rm of Foster Pepper& Shefelman. [3] He attended Lakeside School in Seattle,where Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a classmate. [4]
He graduated from Princeton in 1977 with a Bachelor ofArts in English and Art History. [1] He received a Masterof Arts in English from Columbia University in 1979. [2]
He received his Ph.D. in art history from the City Uni-versity of New York in 1990, writing his dissertation onSurrealism under Rosalind Krauss .[5]
2 Career
After graduating from Princeton, Foster moved to NewYork City , where he worked for Artforum from 1977 to1981. He was then an editor at Art in America until 1987,when he became Director of Criticaland Curatorial Stud-ies at the Whitney Museum .[2][5]
In 1982, [6] a friend from Lakeside School founded BayPress to publish The Mink’s Cry , a children’s book writ-ten by Foster. [3] In the following year Bay Press published
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture , a col-lection of essays on postmodernism edited by Foster [7]
that became a seminal text of postmodernism. [5] In 1985,Bay Press published Recodings , Foster’s rst collection ofessays. [5] The Anti-Aesthetic and Recordings were, respec-tively, Bay Press’s best and second best selling titles. [3]
Foster founded Zone in 1985 and was its editor until1992. [8]
In 1991, Foster left the Whitney [2] to join the faculty ofCornell University 's Department of the History of Art.That same year, Foster became an editor of the journalOctober ;[5] he was still on the board as of 2011. [9] In1997 he joined the faculty of his undergraduate almamater, Princeton University, in the Department of Artand Archaeology. [5] In 2000 he became the TownsendMartin Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. [8]
He chaired the Department of Art and Archaeology from2005 to 2009. [10] In September 2011 he was appointedto the search committee to nd a new dean for Prince-ton’s School of Architecture. [11] He is a faculty fellow ofWilson College .[12]
Foster received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998. [13] In2010 he was elected a fellow of the American Academyof Arts and Sciences [14] and awarded the Clark Prizefor Excellence in Arts Writing by the Clark Art Insti-tute .[8] Spring 2011 he won a Berlin Prize fellowship ofthe American Academy in Berlin .[15] In 2013-14 he wasappointed practitioner in residence at Camberwell Col-lege of Arts in London.
3 Criticism
In his introduction to The Anti-Aesthetic , Foster describeda distinction between complicity with and resistanceto capitalism within postmodernism. [7] The book in-cluded contributions by Jean Baudrillard , DouglasCrimp ,Kenneth Frampton , Jürgen Habermas , Fredric Jame-son, Rosalind Krauss , Craig Owens , Edward Saïd , andGregory Ulmer .[16]
In Recodings (1985), Foster focused on the role of theavant-garde within postmodernism. He advocated a post-modernism that engages in both a continuation of its his-torical roots in the avant-garde and contemporary socialand political critique, in opposition to what he saw as a
“pluralistic” impulse to abandon the avant-garde in fa-vor of more aesthetically traditional and commerciallyviable modes. He promoted artists he saw as exempli-
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2 5 REFERENCES
fying this vision, among them Dara Birnbaum , JennyHolzer , Barbara Kruger , Louise Lawler , Sherrie Levine ,Allan McCollum , Martha Rosler , and Krzysztof Wod-iczko . Foster favored expansion of the scope of post-modernist art from galleries and museums to a broaderclass of public locations and from painting and sculptureto other media. He saw postmodernism’s acknowledg-ment of differences in viewers’ backgrounds and lack ofdeference to expertise as important contributions to theavant-garde. [5]
By the mid-1990s, Foster had come to believe that thedialectic within the avant-garde between historical en-gagement and contemporary critique had broken down.In his view, the latter came to be preferred over the for-mer as interest was elevated over quality. In The Returnof the Real (1996), taking as his model Karl Marx 's re-action against G. W. F. Hegel , he sought to rebut PeterBürger’s declaration of the failure of the avant-garde inTheory of the Avant-Garde (1984). Foster’s model wasbased on a notion of “deferred action” inspired by thework of Sigmund Freud . He conceded the failure of theinitial avant-garde wave (which included such gures asMarcel Duchamp ) but argued that future waves could re-deem earlier ones by incorporating through historical ref-erence those aspects that had not been comprehended therst time around. Gordon Hughes compares this theorywith Jean-François Lyotard 's. [5]
Foster has been critical of the eld of visual culture , ac-cusing it of “looseness”. In a 1999 article in Social Text ,Crimp rebutted Foster, criticizing his notion of the avant-garde and his treatment in The Return of the Real of sex-ual identity in Andy Warhol 's work. [5]
Foster views his roles as art criticand art historian as com-plementary rather than mutually opposed, in accordancewith his adherence to postmodernism. [5] In an interviewpublished in the Journal of Visual Culture , he said, “I'venever seen critical work in opposition to historical work:like many others I try to hold the two in tandem, in ten-sion. History without critique is inert; criticism withouthistory is aimless”. [17]
4 Bibliography
This list is incomplete ; you can help byexpanding it .
4.1 Books
• Foster, Hal (1982). The mink’s cry . Bay Press.
• —, ed. (1983). The anti-aesthetic : essays on post-modern culture . Bay Press.
• Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics , 1985.Bay Press.
• —, ed. (1988). Vision and visuality . The NewPress.
• —, ed. (1988). Discussions in contemporary culture .The New Press.
• Compulsive Beauty , 1995. MIT Press .
• The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century , 1996. MIT Press.
• Design and Crime (And Other Diatribes) , 2002. 2nd.ed, 2011. Verso Books .
• Art Since 1900: Modernism, Anti-Modernism, Post-modernism , 2005. With Rosalind Krauss , Yve-Alain Bois , and Benjamin Buchloh . Thames & Hud-son.
• Pop (Themes & Movements) , 2006. With Mark
Francis. Phaidon Press .• Prosthetic Gods , 2006. MIT Press.
• The Art-Architecture Complex , 2011. Verso Books.
• The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in theArt of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha , 2011. Princeton University Press .
4.1.1 Reprints
4.2 Book reviews
5 References
[1] Princeton University senior thesis catalog : Foster, Harold.Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[2] “Curriculum vitae: Hal Foster” (PDF). Princeton Univer-sity Departmentof Art and Archaeology. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[3] Mudede, Charles (2002-01-30). “The mysterious disap-pearance of Bay Press” . The Stranger . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[4] Miller, Brian (2002-07-31). “Kmart vs. Koolhaas” .Seattle Weekly . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[5] Hughes, Gordon (2002). “Hal Foster (1955–)". In Vick-ery, Jonathan; Costello, Diarmuid. Art: Key Contempo-rary Thinkers . Berg Publishers . pp. 79–82. Retrieved2011-11-04.
[6] “The Mink’s Cry” . Amazon.com . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[7] Harrison, Charles ; Wood, Paul, eds. (2009). Art in The-ory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas . Wiley-Blackwell . p. 1037. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[8] Clark Art Institute . “The Clark Prize for Excellence inArts Writing” . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[9] MIT Press Journals. “October” . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
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[10] Foster, Hal (Spring 2009). “Department of Art and Ar-chaeology newsletter” (PDF). p. 1. Retrieved 2011-11-04. After four years... I am stepping down as chair....
[11] Altmann, Jennifer Greenstein (2011-09-28). “Searchcommittee appointed for architecture dean” . Retrieved2011-11-04.
[12] Wilson College . “Hal Foster” . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[13] John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . “HalFoster” . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[14] Worthen, Tory (2010-04-21). “American Academy ofArts and Sciences elects nine professors as fellows” . TheDaily Princetonian . Retrieved 2011-11-04.
[15] “Siemens Fellow - Class of Spring 2011” . AmericanAcademy in Berlin. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
[16] Foster, Hal, ed. (1983). The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays onPostmodern Culture . Bay Press.
[17] Foster, Hal (2004). “Polemics, postmodernism, immer-sion, militarized space”. Journal of Visual Culture 3 (3):320–35. Interviewed by Marquard Smith.
6 External links
• Princeton Faculty: Hal Foster
• The MIT Press: Hal Foster
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4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
7.1 Text• Hal Foster (art critic) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Foster_(art_critic)?oldid=682289151 Contributors: Jahsonic, Charles
Matthews, Orangemike, ZephyrAnycon, Mandarax, Rjwilmsi, Sherool, Grafen, White Lightning, Betacommand, Grhabyt, Smoghat,John, Iopensa, Justus Nussbaum, Grahamdubya, Freshacconci, Johnpacklambert, SteveStrummer, Ethicoaestheticist, AlleborgoBot, La-grange613, ImageRemovalBot, Addbot, Axl429, Otbon, Artmax, Pressint, Sunwin1960, Mattg82, Erik9bot, Gohughes, Gingerup, Rjwilm-siBot, HiMyNameIsFrancesca, Dcstarling, ErinJovi, LauraFHilliger, Churn and change, Monkbot, Carlyohnein, KasparBot and Anony-mous: 20
7.2 Images• File:Hal_Foster_2.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Hal_Foster_2.JPG License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Contributors: Own work Original artist: Grahamdubya
7.3 Content license• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
