Recodings - by Hal Foster (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For the past few decades Hal Foster's critical gaze has encompassed the increasingly complex machinery of the culture industry. His observations push the boundaries of cultural criticism to establish a vantage point from which the seemingly disparate agendas of artists, patrons, and critics have a telling coherence. Recodings has become the classic "primer in poststructuralist debate" (Village Voice). The essays present a constellation of concerns about the limits and myths of postmodernism, 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.

About the Author

Hal Foster is Townsend Martin Class of 1917 Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, where he teaches courses in modernist and contemporary art and theory and directs the graduate proseminar in methodology. He is a faculty member of the School of Architecture and an associate faculty member of the Department of German; he also works with Media and Modernity and European Cultural Studies programs. He is the author of numerous books, including "The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture" and "Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics," both published by The New Press. He is also the editor of two New Press books, "Discussions in Contemporary Culture #1" and "Vision and Visuality: Discussions in Contemporary Culture #2." A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foster writes regularly for "October," which he co-edits; "Artforum"; the "London Review of Books"; and "New Left Review."