The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture

by Hal Foster (Editor)

For the past thirty years, Hal Foster has pushed the boundaries of cultural criticism, establishing a vantage point from which the seemingly disparate agendas of artists, patrons, and critics have a telling coherence. In The Anti-Aesthetic, preeminent critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Rosalind Krauss, Fredric Jameson, and Edward Said consider the full range of postmodern cultural production, from the writing of John Cage, to Cindy Sherman's film stills, to Barbara Kruger's collages. With a redesigned cover and a new afterword that situates the book in relation to contemporary criticism, The Anti-Aesthetic provides a strong introduction for newcomers and a point of reference for those already engaged in discussions of postmodern art, culture, and criticism. Includes a new afterword by Hal Foster and 12 black and white photographs.

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Theory, Art History, Architecture

183 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

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

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the Fredric Jameson essay and regret not knowing about him during my stint in Santa Cruz, where he heads up the history of consciousness. In his essay, called something like"Post-modernism and Consumer Society" (I no longer have the book), he breaks down two defining features of post-modernism: pastiche and a second more unique facet where he describes the way in which post-modernist work may be experienced as dislocated from linear history.

This second facet is likened to the way a schizophrenic may experience something without a sense of it's historical meaning nor the potential to build meaning in the future (this historically-grounded sense is how we choose to ignore or engage with aspects of the world, in order to inform who we are and our sense of meaning in life). That object or event no longer has anything to present but it's "objecthood" to an overwhelming degree. He gives some good examples of how this schizophrenic sense of signification shows itself in art.

I won't repeat the way that he ties these aspects of post-modernism into consumer society because it is a short essay and worth reading for yourself. My review hardly touches on the thesis of the essay, but instead just highlights part that I found particularly interesting. So I promise I haven't spoiled anything for you.

[Sarah Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best books on postmodern theory out there. It didn't make me want to hit my head on anything, and actually clarified a few issues for me. A must read for anyone curious about postmodernism or writing about American art since 1940.

[Zuty Lorz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modernity- An Incomplete Project
Jürgen Habermas

The Discipline of Aesthetic Modernity
Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which fin a common focus in a changed consciousness of time. The purpose of things vanguard and avant-garde is to find uncharted territory. This is in conflict with modernist notions of the myth of progress, in tune with classical and Enlightenment sentiments. Because the avant gard focuses on the unknown and lack of concrete futures, modernity holds interest in the sublime moment of passing, ephemerality, the unstable, dynamism, and the elusive. This discloses a longing for an undefiled immaculate and stable present.

Cultural Modernity and Societal Modernization
Defines conservative (Pre-modernism) and neo conservative (Anti-modernism) and references Daniel Bell's capitalism and how the two wings reconcile their own identity while holding up against the other in terms of art practices.

The Project of Enlightenment
References Max Weber and follows the evolution of 1.Science, 2.Morality, and 3.Art from the 18th Century to the present; and discusses how separation from hermeneutics has changed our society's focus.
Truth, normative rightness, authenticity, beauty.
Knowledge, justice & morality, taste.
Institutionalized specialization and expertise.

The False Programs of the Negation of Culture
For every movement or idea, there is an anti movement.
Young Hegelians pursued a negation of philosophy. Marx's theory and practice sought to enlist a program to negate philosophy through social movement. The surrealist movement sought to negate art. References Theodor W. Adorno's "Aesthetic Theory": "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted anymore: Neither art itself, nor art in its relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist.
The radical attempt to negate art did two things. 1.Nothing remains from a de-sublimated meaning or de-structured form. 2.Cognitive meanings, moral expectations, subjective expressions and evaluations all come into question within art practices (anything goes). Cross reference Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

Alternatives
References Peter Weiss' "Die Asthetik des Widerstands" (The Aesthetics of Resistance) (Novel, 1975) in which the young neo conservatives step outside the modern world by having a de-centered subjectivity emancipated from the imperatives of work and usefulness. This was written at the height of the German constructivist movement.
Habermas describes the modern world view to have a procedural rationality and defines the modern world as a decline of substansive reason and as the differentiation of science, morality, and art. Poses that Neo-Aristotelianism enjoys success today and pegs Leo Strauss as the father of this movement.

Habermas closes with these 3 statements:
1. Science is meaningless for orientation of world life.
2. Politics should be kept far from moral-practical justification.
3. Art should have Utopian content- immanence of art- keep the aesthetic experience democratic and public. (References Wittgenstein, Carl Schmitt, and Gottfried Benn.)
Discard the project of modernity and replace with tradition. Tradition is immune to demands of normative justification and validation.

Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance
Kenneth Frampton
1. Culture and Civilization
2. The Rise and Fall of the Avant-Garde
3. Critical Regionalism and World Culture
4. The Resistance of the Place-Form
5. Culture Versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light and Tectonic Form
6. The Visual Versus the Tactile

Sculpture in the Expanded Field
Rosalind Krauss

On the Museum's Ruins
Douglas Crimp

The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism
Craig Owens
A Remarkable Oversight
A La Recherche du Récit Perdu
The Visible and the Invisible
Discusses the intersection of the feminist critique of patriarchy and the postmodern critique of representation. Owens in interested in a Lacaanian context of feminism, specifically in terms of Saussurian structuralist linguistics. Through the introduction of heterogeneity, discontinuity, glossolalia, etc- put the supject of representation in crisis. The avant garde wanted to transcend representation in favor of presence and immediacy- in favor of the ephemeral. This proclaimed autonomy of the signifier which led postmodernists to believe in the "Tyranny of the Signified."
Cross references Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" which discusses the masculinity of the cinematic gaze.

The Object of Post-Criticism
Gregory L. Ulmer
Collage/Montage
Grammatology
Allegory
Parasite/Saprophyte

Postmodernism and Consumer Society
Fredric Jameson
Discusses image pastiche in terms of the new image-linguistics. Argues that pastiche is neutral and lacks parody's sense of humor. Pastiche can only be nullified by nostalgia. Discusses the image-metonymy in terms of signifier, signified, and the referent.
Discusses the loss of timelessness and history in the post modern aesthetic and the old tension between city and country life are gone. "Our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past."


The Ecstasy of Communication
Jean Baudrillard

Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies and Community
Edward W. Said

[Katja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can be so annoying now that I’ve read this!

[Juls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha encantado. No sabía si darle cuatro o cinco estrellas dado que, al ser un compendio de ensayos tengo opiniones diversas sobre lo mismos, sin embargo, el último de ellos, escrito por Edward W. Said me ha terminado de convencer para darle esta valoración, pues merece la pena leer el libro solo para llegar a ese texto.
Una lectura densa en momentos pero muy amena en otros donde se hace un barrido sobre el concepto de posmodernidad desde múltiples perspectivas permitiendo hacerse al lector una idea bastante clara de los rasgos principales que constituyen este análisis sociológico y artístico del panorama contemporáneo y el tiempo que vivimos.
Pese a tratarse de una publicación realizada en los 80, la mayoría de los conceptos que se plantean son perfectamente trasladables a la actualidad, viendo como muchos de estos aspectos que en el siglo XX eran meramente incipientes han tenido en estas últimas décadas un crecimiento exponencial mientras que otros se han visto aún más diluidos en esta era de la pluralidad y liquidez de ideas.
Muy muy recomendado y una lectura que te da pie a otra nueva bibliografía muy interesante.
He disfrutado especialmente los textos de Rosalind Krauss y Frederic Jameson. Un soplo de aire fresco entre una excesiva complejidad y pesadez de otros estilos de escritura.

[Lemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here we have nine essays by as many writers; I at first tried to address each individually, but by the end they flowed together such that it seemed unnecessary. What is the essential thesis of the collection? Something akin to "capitalism is rapidly de-realizing humanity... and that was supposed to be our job!"
Some of my issues with this book are ideological; rather, the writers very clearly come from a particular left-academic position, one so long and so thoroughly held that at every turn it is implicitly understood that anything conservative or capitalistic with power is fundamentally a problem, and this mindset extends quickly to territory that on the surface is wholesome or benign. This isn't a deal breaker; plenty of writers have strong opinions, and how many conservatives could they expect to see a book like this and bother to read it? But if you don't share their foundational beliefs then the essays come off as comical or unhinged.
Objectively a bigger problem is simply that the book is dated, and was already dated when it was published in 1998. Many of the essays originated a decade, even two decades earlier, and this sort of subject matter already doesn't tend to age well. Bizarrely, not one essay so much as mentions the internet, a newly-universal and painfully relevant technology whose mere existence deflates some of the essays completely. This sort of obsolescence, once again, isn't enough to make an essay not worth reading, but even readers in the '90s must have rolled their eyes at e.g. the talk of "The Era of Reaganism", already yesterday's news.
This dated quality makes for some very strange reading experiences, as the essayists eagerly fall into the late-20th-century spirit of "NOW NOW NOW!" that they would seem to decry, while the NOW in question is already ancient history, as if not only are their arguments in those essays muffled by quaintness, reading them extends that quaintness to the whole realm of literary/cultural criticism. Why try to write something like this now, when it will age even more pathetically than these?
Another problem I noticed with the book was a strange and startling lack of imagination: each essayist speaks of television as if it is not simply a disruptive innovation but the last word- the final invention, if you will- which is all the goofier since, as mentioned, everyone in America at least knew the internet existed by the time the book came out. One essayist writes of "late capitalism" in 1982; what a humiliation the rest of that decade must have been! As regards both capitalism and television it's as though all these people looked at the situation and thought "well, I can't imagine something that goes further than this, so such a thing clearly is not possible." And this inadequacy extends, sadly, even to their takes on academic matters- I think it was Frederic Jameson who in his essay said "(Foucault) marks the end of philosophy as such", a particularly wild but not unrepresentative claim from this crowd.
I didn't get a whole lot out of this book and I don't recommend it. But it did offer the occasional food for thought or legitimate laugh (the architecture essay complaining that sight is given too much weight in building design compared to hearing, smell and taste is hi-la-ri-ous), so it deserves more than one star.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading The Anti-Aesthetic felt like being invited to a furious yet fascinating dinner party — where Jürgen Habermas throws jabs across the table at Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson is monologuing about cultural logic from the corner seat, and Douglas Crimp keeps whispering about the death of modernist purity. And in the middle of it all, like an elegant but scheming maître d’, stands Hal Foster, curating this postmodern potluck with the cool confidence of someone who knows exactly how messy this is supposed to get.

This anthology doesn’t try to define postmodernism with a single theory or manifesto. Instead, it presents nine sharply divergent essays, each approaching the cultural condition from a different angle — aesthetics, politics, architecture, critical theory, feminism, and media studies. Foster's brilliance lies in the editorial choice: he doesn’t try to harmonize these voices. He lets them collide.

One of the most provocative themes is the rejection of modernist autonomy and purity in favor of hybridity, impurity, and the “impure aesthetics” of postmodern life. The title itself — The Anti-Aesthetic — is a slap in the face to modernism’s lofty goals of high form and universal taste. Here, art is messy, ironic, socially entangled, and politically ambiguous.

Habermas’s essay, for example, pleads for an unfinished modernity — one that hasn’t yet realized its emancipatory potential. He’s suspicious of the playful, relativistic turn of postmodern thinkers. Meanwhile, Baudrillard shrugs from across the room: in his view, reality itself is now just simulation, and culture is a hall of mirrors with no exit. Jameson drops his usual mix of Marx and media — postmodernism, for him, is the cultural logic of late capitalism, where depth has given way to surface and the past has become pastiche.

What struck me personally — reading this anthology with a tired cup of 2003 Kolkata Book Fair cha in hand — was just how conflicted, vibrant, and alive these debates were. You could feel the friction. This wasn’t theory as ritual; this was theory as riot. And unlike some later postmodern summaries that smooth the edges, The Anti-Aesthetic keeps the rawness, the resistance, the genuine uncertainty.

It’s also a deeply visual book. There’s discussion of architecture, art installations, photography, and how postmodernism plays out not just in theory journals but in space, bodies, and images. And let’s not forget Rosalind Krauss’s laser-sharp writing on the “expanded field” of sculpture, or Craig Owens dismantling the myth of the neutral observer. You come away realizing postmodernism isn’t just a bunch of ideas — it’s a way of seeing, even breathing.

And yet, there’s an ironic clarity in the chaos. You begin to see why postmodernism had to happen — why modernist ideals of purity, progress, and autonomy could no longer hold in a world of Vietnam, consumer culture, decolonization, feminism, and MTV. This book is that cultural moment caught in motion, in thought, in protest.

[yuefei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished the first read (finally!). Will be keeping this around for a while for reference, skipping through and closer reading. It's a seminal text and imo offers some good ground for understanding our current historical situation (though the age does come through at some points). The Crimp, Jameson and Baudrillard texts are all insightful, and it's good to be able to trace some now widely diffused ideas back to their "source." The Krauss one, heavily dependent on structuralism, didn't age very well, but it's a fun read. The Owens is a good example of what Foster calls a "critical" (i.e., valuable and engaged, demystifying) postmodernism. Feelings are still mixed on the Ulmer. The Said text provides some points of departure that have now lowkey become trends (interdisciplinarity and praxis); but these approaches, when actioned genuinely, are arguably still valuable—much purportedly "interdisciplinary" projects paradoxically generate new areas of specialism and hermeticism. Would be interesting to think of applying what Said says to fine art practice, even though he specifically excluded it from the purview of his essay (keeping it separate from the academy and media).

[Copy from UCL library; hardback copy bound in a deep blue, imageless skin with "University College London" inscribed in gold in a small rectangle in the bottom left-hand corner of the cover. Much of the reading was done on the bus.]

[José · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a neat book, also a good example of how complicated writing in post-modernism (esp. post-structuralism) can become. The essays I enjoyed the must were definitely those by Edward Said (on how audiences are artificially delineated in literary studies to cater to a very small subset despite having intentions of reaching to wider crowds), Craig Owens (on the interaction between feminism and postmodern culture and the postmodern condition (weird how they did not get a woman to write about this but still a good essay in my opinion)), Rosalind Krauss (on explaining how one can think about sculpture in postmodern terms without creating a conceptual disconnect with what it was before), and Douglas Crimp (on how the museum legitimises the art it contains and v/v and how the traditional version of a museum preempts the possibility of a "postmodern museum"). Some others had interesting points - namely Jameson and Ulmer - but the latter's point was (in my opinion) almost prohibitively convoluted for how interesting it could be; I did understand that a new mode of writing (that of post-criticism) was trying to be achieved and that is in its own right very Derridarian but to me that made the concept a lot harder to grasp.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays in The Anti-Aesthetic provide a comprehensive review of the main currents of both post-modern criticism and post-modern art forms. Addressing Feminism, Marxism, Structuralism and Deconstruction, the essays by Habermas, Baudrillard, Jameson and Said among others lay out the touch points of contemporary art criticism including montage, linguistics, psychoanalysis, allegory, ideology critique and the constructed realities of late capitalism. At the same time these essays address the transformation of art from its modernist to its post-modern phase. In architecture, in pictorial representation and in literature the essays trace how art changes as the modernist vanguard and the aura of authenticity give way to an aesthetics of mass production capable of co-opting resistance through mechanical reproduction. In so doing, these philosopher seek to retrieve the critical moment(s) that late industrial capital, technological production and mass communications seek to eviscerate.

[Clayton Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just don’t get it I guess. Is it too much to ask for evidence for these sweeping claims about culture and society? A quick look at the bibliographies at the end of each essay shows that all of these literary critics and cultural theorists only read and cite other theorists. Maybe some of these references contain some interesting genealogical surveys, but I doubt it.

[Peter Pinelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read anything by Edward Said or Frederic Jameson until now. I'm pleasantly surprised by how engaged their writing is.

I enjoyed most of the essays. A few were written with a more obscure style than necessary:
writers with obscure styles: Craig Owens, Gregory L Ulmer, Jean Baudrillard

[Oisín · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much all of the essays are interesting/thought provoking, particularly those of Crimp, Owens, Ulmer, Jameson, and Said. However, as a collection; it lacked some sense of direction at points.

[Angelika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schon viel Geschwafel tbh. Würd da lieber die zitierten Schlüsselwerke lesen

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of random debate about what postmodernism even is. I’d say Said and Habermas had the most interesting essays.

[Kathleen Quaintance · Rating 4 out of 5]

like yeah, this is seminal, but if I have to deal with it/discuss it/read it one more time i'm about to lose it

[Gianna Kelliher · Rating 3 out of 5]

booored, everything at the end of the day is benjamin

[May Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, this was not my cup of tea, and that is despite a true interest in post-modern thought and its impact on aesthetic (even if it be anti-aesthetic). I found the first few essays to be the continuation of a dialogue for which I had not been made aware in advance. That to me is poor essay writing. If you must make your point by citation after citation vs. making your point and using citations as illustrations, then just can’t give you any sort of real credit.
Of the 10 essays comprised in this book really 2 were of any real value. The first is the Object of Post Modernism. Though I found the prose to be rather windy, it introduced many terms that have evolved into what is going on in the internet today. The second was Opponents Audiences Constituencies and Community. This essay is the only in the collection that is well-written, meaning the argument is clear, stands on its own and written in true essay format. That the content is equally as compelling is the reason this has 3 stars instead of 1. It argues something that I believe strongly is the death of thinking in society, i.e. the confusion of classification as anything other than an arbitrary division to help people break up into easier pieces the acquisition of knowledge. He writes of “experts” in a Field (versus just really smart thinkers): “To acquire a position of authority within the field is, however, to be involved internally in the formation of a canon, which usually turns out to be a blocking device for methodological and disciplinary self-questioning.” Brilliantly put and further supported. Hurray for Edward W. Said who saved, what otherwise would have been a wasted hour of reading.

[baal · Rating 3 out of 5]

"For as long as there has existed a separation between the ordinary life of laymen in the West, (that is, in those countries pursuing the imperatives of European democracies), the outcome of such pursuit has been deemed "civilized" in the concrete forms of knowledge, welfare and security, then the definition of Postmodernity will be the subject of tremendous debate. This was outlined by Habermas, Jameson and Saïd in this book some 30 years ago. However, their promises such as the fulfillment of the project of Modernity, the co-opting of the same for a different type of modernism or for the formation of a contingent, all-encompassing critique of postmodernity translatable for the laymen's understanding still appear, in the best of cases, as but interesting chimeras."

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this book less stars if I were rating it without any context.

For instance, I don't necessarily recommend reading it.

I read parts of it in grad school, then read the whole thing a few years later as a youngish artist in the city. It remember it as the quintessential postmodern foundation text, at least in relationship to art. There's lots of simulacrum and appropriation speak, and I feel like embedded in the text is a sort of cheerleading for the pictures artists and a lot of 80's art. The ideas are still kicking around, so I guess this is good to read for a certain set of art smart people. But it's super boring.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text has moments of brilliance, but is largely overshadowed by excess bulk. Personally I only found the essays by Fredric Jameson, Edward Said and Rosalind Krauss to be of any real relevance today. The other six essays are written in an extremely dry manner and a couple are not particularly coherent. They're not all bad, I found valid points in each one, but for the most part they just created bulk in what could have been a strong collection of essays.

[Mohammad Abid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best collection of essays one can find in a single copy. One of the most scholarly critiques on post-modernity. I particularly loved the introduction by Hal Foster where he brilliantly tries to link-up all the major ideas of the following sets of essays by the most prominent minds. Truly a seminal piece of text, i believe.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of essays on postmodernism and various examples thereof. Consumed this particular text during my 2000-2001 stint at SMCM, working my way through my SMP, trying to create reasonably plausible art students in my novel.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a great collection of essay from many art theorist. It really explains the last 20 years of art and culture.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jul 7, 2022: I know I wrote and posted a review for this book, but apparently it has gone missing.

Acquired May 19, 2006
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario

[Mr. Pe Mr. Pe]

this book is great i recommend this to everyone

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

what is art?

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture by Hal Foster (1983)

[Eric Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great info on (still) current philosophy with all those subtle French guys and their fellow travelers. Is this this still hip? Depends how smart your peeps are.

[Ploetzly]

i didn't finish it, but it was good ...