The Return of the Real: The Avante-Garde at the End of the Century

Hal Foster discusses the development of art and theory since 1960, and reorders the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes. Opposed to the assumption that contemporary art is somehow belated, he argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. Library Journal Since the late 1950s, art and critical theory have been increasingly linked, both by artists themselves and by commentators. Editor of the journal October, Foster (art history and comparative literature, Cornell Univ.) discusses here a wide range of artists (including Andy Warhol, Robert Smithson, Barbara Kruger, Mike Kelley, and Cindy Sherman) to explore his ideation of the avant-garde and the regrounding of art in materiality. Focusing on art and artists active after 1960, Foster traces the movement from "art-as-text" in the 1970s, to "art-as-simulacrum" in the 1980s, to contemporary art that is moving more toward materiality. For those not conversant with the language and ideology of contemporary critical theory, Foster's discussion of developments since 1960 will be hard to follow. Recommended only for larger academic collections.Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Lib., Washington, D.C. In The Return of the Real , Hal Foster discusses the development of art and theory since 1960, and reorders the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes. Opposed to the assumption that contemporary art is somehow belated, he argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive model of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is pervasive today. After the models of art-as-text in the 1970s and art-as-simulacrum in the 1980s; Foster suggests that we are now witness to a return to the real; to art and theory grounded in the materiality of actual bodies and social sites; If The Return of the Real begins with a new narrative of the historical avant-garde; it concludes with an original reading of this contemporary situation; and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics. "The Return of the Real presents an original reading of art and theory over the last three decades, with special emphasis to the controversial connections between the two. It also rethinks the relation between historical avant gardes and neo-avant-gardes. The result is an authoritative genealogy of art and theory from minimalism and pop to the present, with important ramifications for prewar studies as well." "Against the cliche that contemporary art and theory are condemned to historical pastiche, Foster argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative work in the present. And he poses this retroactive model of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is so pervasive today."--BOOK JACKET.