Books by Hal Foster

Vision and Visuality (Discussions in Contemporary Culture)

by Hal Foster

A Village Voice Best Book of the Year, this seminal work presents new models of vision and examines modern theories of seeing in the context of contemporary critical practice.

With contributions by: Norman Bryson Jonathan Crary Martin Jay Rosalind Krauss Jacqueline Rose

Discussions in Contemporary Culture is an award-winning series co-published with the Dia Center for the Arts in New York City. These volumes offer rich and timely discourses on a broad range of cultural issues and critical theory. The collection covers topics from urban planning to popular culture and literature, and continually attracts a wide and dedicated readership.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 1: 1937-1938

by Hal Foster

The most gorgeous adventure comic strip of all time, the on-going Prince Valiant Sunday-only comic strip ran for 35 years under its creator, Hal Foster. Foster limned epic swordfights and some of the most beautiful human beings ever to appear in comics. And he matched his nonpareil visual sense with the narrative instincts of a born storyteller. Prince Valiant has previously been widely available only in re-colored, now-out-of print editions (which fetch collectors' prices). Thanks to advances in production technology and newly available original proof sheets, this new series is the first to feature restored artwork that captures every delicate line and chromatic nuance of Foster's masterpiece. Comic strip aficionados will be ecstatic, and younger readers who enjoy classic adventure will be bowled over. Book One also has a rare, in-depth Foster interview.

The Dada Seminars (CASVA Seminar Papers)

by Matthew Witkovsky, Helen Molesworth, Hal Foster, David Joselit, George Baker, T.J. Demos, Uwe Fleckner, Marcella Lista, Arnauld Pierre, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Amelia Jones

This volume of 12 essays fills a broad gap in Modernist art history. Taken together, these case studies on artists and concepts present Dada as a coherent movement with a set of operating principles. Among the “ tactics” elaborated are the hyperbolic mimicry of dominant social and linguistic conventions, the performance of gender and other aspects of identity, the usurpation of the modes of a new media culture and the marketplace, and the recycling of history and memory in a world traumatized by war. The Dada Seminars developed out of a series held by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, in advance of 2005's major traveling exhibition on international Dada. Contributors include George Baker, T.J. Demos, Leah Dickerman, Uwe Fleckner, Hal Foster, Amelia Jones, David Joselit, Marcella Lista, Helen Molesworth, Arnauld Pierre, Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Matthew S. Witkovsky.

Kerry James Marshall: History of Painting

by Teju Cole, Hal Foster

Kerry James Marshall is one of America’s greatest living painters. History of Painting presents a groundbreaking body of new work that engages with the history of the medium itself.

In History of Painting, the artist has widened his scope to include both figurative and nonfigurative works that deal explicitly with art history, race, and gender, as well as force us to reexamine how artworks are received in the world and in the art market. In the paintings in this book, Marshall’s critique of history and of dominant white narratives is present, even as the subjects of the paintings move between reproductions of auction catalogues, abstract works, and scenes of everyday life.

Essays by Teju Cole and Hal Foster help readers navigate the artist’s masterful vision, decoding complexly layered works such as Untitled (Underpainting) (2018) and Marshall’s own artistic philosophy. This catalogue is published on the occasion of Marshall’s eponymous exhibition at David Zwirner, London, in 2018.

Prince Valiant Vols. 7-9: Gift Box Set

by Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy

In Vols. 7-9 of the Arthurian newspaper comic strip, Prince Valiant and Aleta battle black magic; Arn is christened; Nimue bewitches Merlin; and more.

What Comes After Farce: Art and Criticism at a Time of Debacle

by Hal Foster

Surveying the artistic and cultural scene in the era of Trump

In a world where truth is cast in doubt and shame has gone missing, what are artists and critics on the left to do? How to demystify a political order that laughs away its own contradictions? How to mock leaders who thrive on the absurd? And why, in any event, offer more outrage to a media economy that feeds on the same?

Such questions are grist to the mill of Hal Foster, who, in What Comes after Farce?, delves into recent developments in art, criticism, and fiction under the current regime of war, surveillance, extreme inequality, and media disruption. Concerned first with the cultural politics of emergency since 9/11, including the use and abuse of trauma, conspiracy, and kitsch, he moves on to consider the neoliberal makeover of aesthetic forms and art institutions during the same period. A final section surveys signal transformations in art, film, and writing. Among the phenomena explored are machine vision (images produced by machines for other machines without a human interface), operational images (images that do not represent the world so much as intervene in it), and the algorithmic scripting of information that pervades our everyday lives.

If all this sounds dire, it is. In many respects we look out on a world that has moved, not only politically but also technologically, beyond our control. Yet Foster also sees possibility in the current debacle: the possibility to pressure the cracks in this order, to turn emergency into change.

Design and Crime (And Other Diatribes) (Radical Thinkers)

by Hal Foster

In these diatribes on the marketing of culture and the branding of identity, the development of spectacle—architecture and the rise of global cities, Hal Foster surveys our new political economy of design. Written in a lively style, Design and Crime explores the historical relations of modern art and modern museum, the conceptual vicissitudes of art history and visual studies, the recent travails of art criticism, and the double aftermath of modernism and postmodernism in an attempt to illuminate the conditions for critical culture in the present.

Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms: A Guide to 817 Items in 2 Hours 56 Minutes

by Matt Wrbican, Hal Foster, Eva Meyer-Hermann

Beyond the familiar Campbell’s Soup cans, Brillo boxes, silkscreened Marilyn Monroes and floating silver mylar pillows, 20 years after Pop icon Andy Warhol’s death, we are still picking through his incredibly prolific output to understand what his artistic legacy actually is. Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, published on the occasion of the major exhibition by the same name at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, provides some new insight, digging into Warhol’s lesser-known film, video and audio tape works. Important--and just a little scandalous--films like Blow Job and Kiss, audio tapes of celebrities, friends and anonymous hangers-on talking and other marginalia are considered alongside a selection of key photographs, drawings, screen prints and spatial installations, such as the spectacular “Silver Clouds,” originally shown in 1966. Edited by Eva Meyer-Hermann and with contributions by Geralyn Huxley, Greg Pierce and Warhol Museum Archivist, Matt Wrbican, who is currently unpacking hundreds of never-before-seen Warhol Time Capsules in Pittsburgh, this volume brings readers up to date with the most recent developments in the way we see the late artist’s oeuvre.

Art and Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism

by Hal Foster, Ina Blom, Oliver Brokel, Caroline Busta, Stefan Deines, Stefanie Heraeus, Jutta Koether

Many contemporary artworks evoke the human figure: consider the omnipresence of the mannequin in current installations of artists like John Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Heimo Zobernig, or David Lieske. Or consider the revival of a minimalist vocabulary, which embraces anthropomorphism as in the works of Isa Genzken and Rachel Harrison. This book brings together contributions from the eponymous conference, all of which seek to speculate on the reasons as to why, since the turn of the millennium, we have encountered so many artworks that tend to reconcile Minimalism with suggestions of the human figure. It proposes that this new artistic convention becomes rather questionable when discussed in the light of Franco Berardi's theory of semiocapitalism—a power technology that aims squarely at our human resources. The participants of this conference were asked to offer possible explanations for this wide acceptance of anthropomorphism—could it be that this is a manifestation of the increasingly desperate desire for art to have agency?
Contributors
Ina Blom, Oliver Brokel, Caroline Busta, Stefan Deines, Hal Foster, Stefanie Heraeus, Jutta Koether, Magdalena Nieslony, Michael Sanchez
Institut für Kunstkritik Series

Art Since 1900: 1900 to 1944

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art. A flexible year-by-year structure and extensive cross-referencing allow teachers and students to pursue a chronological approach and/or to study the currents of art since 1900 by medium, theme, country, or region. This completely updated and expanded third edition contains over 125 essays, each focusing on a crucial event in the history of art from 1900 to the present. Ten new essays cover subjects such as Moscow conceptualism, abstract film, postmodern architecture, and queer art, as well as artists from emerging economies and the impact of the market on current art practice.
Text boxes provide further information on key figures and issues. Five introductions explain the different methods of art history at work in the book. There are two roundtable discussions between the authors, and all reference material has been updated. 233 full-color and 188 black-and-white illustrations

Art Since 1900: 1900 to 1944

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries―the most important chronicle of modern art for a generation. The authors of Art Since 1900 adopt a unique, year-by-year structure in which they present more than one hundred and twenty short essays, each focusing on crucial events and the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an artistic manifesto, or the opening of a major exhibition that tell the story of the dazzling diversity of practice and interpretation that characterizes art of this period. Each turning point and breakthrough of modernism and postmodernism is explored in depth, as are the frequent anti-modernist reactions that proposed alternative visions of art and the world. Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art in a way that enables them to comprehend the many “voices” of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 233 full-color and 188 black-and-white illustrations

Art Since 1900: 1945 to the Present

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art. A flexible year-by-year structure and extensive cross-referencing allow teachers and students to pursue a chronological approach and/or to study the currents of art since 1900 by medium, theme, country, or region. This completely updated and expanded third edition contains over 125 essays, each focusing on a crucial event in the history of art from 1900 to the present. Ten new essays cover subjects such as Moscow conceptualism, abstract film, postmodern architecture, and queer art, as well as artists from emerging economies and the impact of the market on current art practice.
Text boxes provide further information on key figures and issues. Five introductions explain the different methods of art history at work in the book. There are two roundtable discussions between the authors, and all reference material has been updated. 311 full-color and 128 black-and-white illustrations

Conversations about Sculpture

by Hal Foster, Richard Serra

“The rhythm of the body moving through space has been the motivating source of most of my work.”—Richard Serra

Drawn from talks between celebrated artist Richard Serra and acclaimed art historian Hal Foster held over a fifteen-year period, this volume offers revelations into Serra’s prolific six-decade career and the ideas that have informed his working practice. Conversations about Sculpture is both an intimate look at Serra’s life and work, with candid reflections on personal moments of discovery, and a provocative examination of sculptural form from antiquity to today. Serra and Foster explore such subjects as the artist’s work in steel mills as a young man; the impact of music, dance, and architecture on his art; the importance of materiality and site specificity to his aesthetic; the controversies and contradictions his work has faced; and his belief in sculpture as experience. They also discuss sources of inspiration—from Donatello and Brancusi to Japanese gardens and Machu Picchu—revealing a history of sculpture across time and culture through the eyes of one of the medium’s most brilliant figures.

Introduced with an insightful preface by Foster, this probing dialogue is beautifully illustrated with duotone images that bring to life both Serra's work and his key commitments.

The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture

by Hal Foster

A handsome new edition of the seminal collection of late twentieth-century cultural criticism, The Anti-Aesthetic was named a Best Book of the Year by the Village Voice and considered a bible of contemporary cultural criticism.
For the past twenty 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. 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.

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

by Hal Foster

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-gard, it concludes with an original reading of this contemporary situation—and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics.

Bad New Days Art, Criticism, Emergency

by Hal Foster

One of the world’s leading art theorists dissects a quarter century of artistic practice

Bad New Days examines the evolution of art and criticism in Western Europe and North America over the last twenty-five years, exploring their dynamic relation to the general condition of emergency instilled by neoliberalism and the war on terror.

Considering the work of artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean, and Isa Genzken, and the writing of thinkers like Jacques Rancière, Bruno Latour, and Giorgio Agamben, Hal Foster shows the ways in which art has anticipated this condition, at times resisting the collapse of the social contract or gesturing toward its repair; at other times burlesquing it.

Against the claim that art making has become so heterogeneous as to defy historical analysis, Foster argues that the critic must still articulate a clear account of the contemporary in all its complexity. To that end, he offers several paradigms for the art of recent years, which he terms “abject,” “archival,” “mimetic,” and “precarious.”

Prince Valiant Vol. 12: 1959-1960

by Hal Foster

Vol. 12 of Fantagraphics’ award-winning series begins with Prince Valiant attempting to rescue Sir Gawain from prison. Most of the first half of this volume finds our two heroes fighting bullies, brigands and a despicable earl, but events soon turn very serious. Charged by King Arthur, Prince Valiant sets out on a quest to find the legendary Holy Grail. Should his mission fail the very foundation of the Fellowship of the Table Round is at stake. This volume concludes with the Misty Isles under attack, and leaves Queen Aleta perilously close to death.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 10: 1955-1956

by Hal Foster

Our tenth volume finds our band of heroes making their way back to the Kingdom of Thule by way of Constantinople and Eastern Russia. Soon they are attacked by a tribe of barbarians who kidnap Aleta for the great Dragada Khan who wants to make her one of his wives. After nearly being killed in battle, Valiant returns to his homeland only to find the threat of hunger hovers over Thule. As Val explores new ways of feeding the kingdom’s growing populace, raiders threaten the lives of his family and friends. The volume ends with Val’s return to Camelot, a tournament of champions, and the threat of new treachery in Cornwall. This volume also includes an introduction by legendary comics artist Timothy Truman, and a special gallery containing more of Hal Foster’s incredible Mountie paintings annotated by comics historian Brian M. Kane.

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries―the most important chronicle of modern art for a generation. The authors of Art Since 1900 adopt a unique, year-by-year structure in which they present more than one hundred and twenty short essays, each focusing on crucial events and the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an artistic manifesto, or the opening of a major exhibition that tell the story of the dazzling diversity of practice and interpretation that characterizes art of this period. Each turning point and breakthrough of modernism and postmodernism is explored in depth, as are the frequent anti-modernist reactions that proposed alternative visions of art and the world. Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art in a way that enables them to comprehend the many “voices” of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 544 full-color and 246 black-and-white illustrations

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Vol. 2 - 1945 to the Present, 2nd Edition

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries―the most important chronicle of modern art for a generation. The authors of Art Since 1900 adopt a unique, year-by-year structure in which they present more than one hundred and twenty short essays, each focusing on crucial events and the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an artistic manifesto, or the opening of a major exhibition that tell the story of the dazzling diversity of practice and interpretation that characterizes art of this period. Each turning point and breakthrough of modernism and postmodernism is explored in depth, as are the frequent anti-modernist reactions that proposed alternative visions of art and the world. Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art in a way that enables them to comprehend the many “voices” of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 311 full-color and 128 black-and-white illustrations

Prince Valiant Vol. 11: 1957-1958

by Hal Foster

The eleventh volume of Fantagraphics award-winning Prince Valiant series concludes our heroes’ adventures in Cornwall, and marks the first appearance of Arvak the Red Stallion. At the Council of Kings, Prince Valiant stands alone in the decision to avoid a ruinous war. Val returns to Aleta, and the two are summoned to Camelot, where Queen Guinevere becomes jealous of Aleta’s popularity. Meanwhile, Val leads a bloody campaign to secure the Eastern marches and learns the tragedies of war. As the book ends, Prince Valiant begins searching for Gawain. There may just be another adventure afoot. Bonus features include a gallery of Foster’s rare and never-before-reprinted advertising art from the 1920s. Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is the most illustrious heroic saga ever written and drawn for the Sunday newspapers. In full, glorious, restored color, this is the finest reproduction of this enthralling, romantic adventure serial ever published.

Bad New Days: Art, Criticism, Emergency

by Hal Foster

One of the world’s leading art theorists dissects a quarter century of artistic practice

Bad New Days examines the evolution of art and criticism in Western Europe and North America over the last twenty-five years, exploring their dynamic relation to the general condition of emergency instilled by neoliberalism and the war on terror.

Considering the work of artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean, and Isa Genzken, and the writing of thinkers like Jacques Rancière, Bruno Latour, and Giorgio Agamben, Hal Foster shows the ways in which art has anticipated this condition, at times resisting the collapse of the social contract or gesturing toward its repair; at other times burlesquing it.

Against the claim that art making has become so heterogeneous as to defy historical analysis, Foster argues that the critic must still articulate a clear account of the contemporary in all its complexity. To that end, he offers several paradigms for the art of recent years, which he terms “abject,” “archival,” “mimetic,” and “precarious.”

The First Pop Age Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha

by Hal Foster

Who branded painting in the Pop age more brazenly than Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha? And who probed the Pop revolution in image and identity more intensely than they? In The First Pop Age, leading critic and historian Hal Foster presents an exciting new interpretation of Pop art through the work of these Pop Five.

Beautifully illustrated in color throughout, the book reveals how these seminal artists hold on to old forms of art while drawing on new subjects of media; how they strike an ambiguous attitude toward both high art and mass culture; and how they suggest that a heightened confusion between images and people is definitive of Pop culture at large.

As The First Pop Age looks back to the early years of Pop art, it also raises important questions about the present: What has changed in the look of screened and scanned images today? Is our media environment qualitatively different from that described by Warhol and company? Have we moved beyond the Pop age, or do we live in its aftermath?

A masterful account of one of the most important periods of twentieth-century art, this is a book that also sheds new light on our complex relationship to images today.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 8: 1951-1952

by Hal Foster

You might think that birth of Prince Valiant’s son Arn at the end of the previous volume would have slowed down Val’s adventuring, but you would be wrong. In Prince Valiant Vol. 7, after the baby has been christened, Valiant and Gawain are dispatched to investigate reports of black magic in Wales, ending up in pitched battle at the aptly named Castle Illwynde. Then it’s off to Scotland to battle the Picts, and then home yet again for Val to visit his growing boy. Valiant now enters the 1950s: The Thule winter is hard and bleak, and a prince who has designs on Aleta must be dealt with. Then it’s another epic-length story, “The Missionaries,” in which Val and several of his fellow knights and crew travel to Rome on a quest for teachers who might bring Christianity to Thule. The story also features an escape through the Alps, far too many red-headed girls, and a tragic, life-changing event for the young squire Geoffrey (a.k.a. “Arf ”). And Foster charmingly ends the book with “The Prince Arn Story,” a three-week sequence narrated by the toddler.

The Art-Architecture Complex

by Hal Foster

Hal Foster, author of the acclaimed Design and Crime, argues that a fusion of architecture and art is a defining feature of contemporary culture. He identifies a “global style” of architecture—as practiced by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano—analogous to the international style of Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies.

More than any art, today’s global style conveys both the dreams and delusions of modernity. Foster demonstrates that a study of the “art-architecture complex” provides invaluable insight into broader social and economic trajectories in urgent need of analysis.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 9: 1953-1954

by Hal Foster

In our ninth volume of the collected illustrative Sunday comic pages, Arn tries his hand at being a warrior, Merlin is bewitched by Nimue, and Tillicum and Boltar have a son named Hatha – the first interracial baby “born” in comics. Most of the second half of this volume follows Gawain and Val’s pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem, and Queen Aleta’s return to the Misty Isles where treacherous nobles seek her throne…and her death. Also featuring a look at Prince Valiant’s 1954 escapades on both the large and small screens by Foster scholar Brian M. Kane. As with all the previous volumes in this highly acclaimed series, these pages are reproduced for the first time from Foster’s personal set of color engraver’s proofs, the most impeccably produced Prince Valiant series ever produced.

Junkspace with Running Room

by Hal Foster, Rem Koolhaas

Junkspace first appeared in the Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (2001), a vast compendium of text, images, and data concerning the consumerist transformation of city and suburb from the first department store to the latest mega mall. The architect Rem Koolhaas itemized in delirious detail how our cities are being overwhelmed. His celebrated jeremiad is updated here and twinned with Running Room, a fresh response from the cultural critic Hal Foster. Junkspace describes the bleak and featureless world of capitalism, while Running Room seeks to find a space within the junk in which the individual might still exist.

Art Since 1900: Volume 1: 1900 to 1944; Volume 2: 1945 to the Present

by Hal Foster, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Five of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Art Since 1900 introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art. A flexible year-by-year structure and extensive cross-referencing allow teachers and students to pursue a chronological approach and/or to study the currents of art since 1900 by medium, theme, country, or region. This completely updated and expanded third edition contains over 125 essays, each focusing on a crucial event in the history of art from 1900 to the present. Ten new essays cover subjects such as Moscow conceptualism, abstract film, postmodern architecture, and queer art, as well as artists from emerging economies and the impact of the market on current art practice.
Text boxes provide further information on key figures and issues. Five introductions explain the different methods of art history at work in the book. There are two roundtable discussions between the authors, and all reference material has been updated.

What Comes After Farce? Art and Criticism at a Time of Debacle

by Hal Foster

Surveying the artistic and cultural scene in the era of Trump

In a world where truth is cast in doubt and shame has gone missing, what are artists and critics on the left to do? How to demystify a political order that laughs away its own contradictions? How to mock leaders who thrive on the absurd? And why, in any event, offer more outrage to a media economy that feeds on the same?

Such questions are grist to the mill of Hal Foster, who, in What Comes after Farce?, delves into recent developments in art, criticism, and fiction under the current regime of war, surveillance, extreme inequality, and media disruption. Concerned first with the cultural politics of emergency since 9/11, including the use and abuse of trauma, conspiracy, and kitsch, he moves on to consider the neoliberal makeover of aesthetic forms and art institutions during the same period. A final section surveys signal transformations in art, film, and writing. Among the phenomena explored are machine vision (images produced by machines for other machines without a human interface), operational images (images that do not represent the world so much as intervene in it), and the algorithmic scripting of information that pervades our everyday lives.

If all this sounds dire, it is. In many respects we look out on a world that has moved, not only politically but also technologically, beyond our control. Yet Foster also sees possibility in the current debacle: the possibility to pressure the cracks in this order, to turn emergency into change.