(Post)Modern Polemics

Author(s): Hal Foster
Source: New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 67-
78
Published by: New German Critique
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488354
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In what way is such work postmodernist? It does not argue with modernism in any serious way. the classical often returns as pop.. and in art to the use of kitschy historicist references to commodify the usual painting (Julian Schnabel is the inflated signifier here). And yet. which. it depends on modernism. I In art and architecture neoconservative postmodernism is marked by an eclectic historicism. is countered with a return to narrative. the art-historical as kitsch. "Neoconservative" postmodernism is the more familiar of the two: defined mostly in terms of style. it launches a critique in which representation is shown to be more constitutive of reality than transparent to it (thus the poststructuralist connection). This postmodernism. it is my contention that these two cepts of postmodernism disclose an historical identity. opposed to the neoconservative. in which old and new modes and styles (used goods. reduced to its own worst formalist image. Charles Moore. far from populist (as is so commonly claimed).for also proclaimed is the return of history (the humanist tradition) and the return of the subject (the artist/architect as the master auteur). assumes "the death of man" not only as original creator of unique artifactsbut also as the centered subject of representation and of history. "Poststructuralist" postmodernism.g. as it were) are retooled and recycled. how- ever opposed in sytle and politics. on the other hand. is alternately elitist in its allusions and 67 . ornament and the figure. but in more ways than the stylistic .an embrace that. This position is often one of reac- tion. to a great degree its postmodernism seems a front for a rapprochement with the market and the public . is profoundly anti- humanist: rather than a return to representation. In architecture this prac- tice tends to the use of a campy pop-classical order to decorate the usual shed (e. Polemics (Post)Modern by Hal Foster In American cultural politics today there are at least two positions on postmodernism now in place: one aligned with a neoconservative politics. the other derived from poststructuralist theory. indeed. Robert Stern).

and in criticism from T. secondly. certainly it is various and strong in art from David through Manet to Frank Stella and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfo. Such displacement . What I have in mind are works that recall a repressed source or marginal sign-system in such a way as to disturb or displace the given institutional history of an art or discipline. As with such anti- modern returns. And what. moreover. Yet. is this "history"but a reduction of historical periods to ruling-class styles that are then pastiched? A history of victors. then. which is now constituted mostly as a mediated abstraction. in the guise of humanism. What. Of course.an ahistory.S. however dreamy. of the retoural'ordre. em- braced fascism .. the public. not pastiche. (In what way can the "benev- olent" historicism of the PhilipJohnson AT&TBuilding be said to rep- resent the present reality of this multinational telecommunications corporation?) The postmodernist status of such art and architecture is unsure on other grounds too. Picabia.they should by home watching T. and in its Neoclassical (academic) form from the lived history of class conflict into the ideal stasis of myth." Now this notorious phrase reveals a truth: there is scarcely any authentic place of public appearance in the megapolis or metroplex today. Or as Robert Venturi once remarked.has a political. I would argue. from the industrial present into a prein- dustrial past. is thus mystified.V. in fact. Malevich and Rodchenko. now it seems symp- tomatic of a sheer post-histoireescapism. Severini and Carri . it is only in certain works of modernism. for reactions against the modern were common enough within its own period: think. And still we are given art and architecture that pretend to speak to such a realm. so with this postmodern one: it comes in the name of a tradition.a flight from the modern in its romantic form.. so commonly seen as a. "Americans don't need piazzas . not untypically.both of whom. which denies the historicity of forms and materials . first of all.Braque. this was the thrust of eclectic historicism in 19th- century art and architecture (especially British) .). however parodic.an illumination of a demoted past . does this "return" imply if not a flight from the present? Clearly. a history. This critical strategy goes back at least to the time of the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. must be questioned. that such redemption is glimpsed . this postmodern return to traditionis conceived otherwise .68 Polemics (Post)Modern manipulative in its cliches.or antihistorical.and through critique. But even then this flight expressed a social protest. however ambivalent. This return to history. the traditionalistturn of art in the late 1910s and 1920s (Picasso. even utopian edge (as is clear from the .as a redemption of history. Eliot to Harold Bloom. for example.

Hal Foster 69 writings of Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch). even negational aspects of modernism are suppressed: apparently. For one thing. they are reproduced in the form of partial simulacra." And to my mind at least.2 Such a reading seems shrill. such postmodern- architecture re-enforce." TheEssentialFrankfurt SchoolReader.both im- ploded and depleted (not only a history of victors. ahistori- cal opposition between "tradition and the individual talent. 1978). can no long- er be found except where the mask has been torn from the countenance of false happiness. fragmented. Writings (New York:Oxford. in the neoconservative scheme of things. fabricated . it is a cultural politics. how is it treated? Theodor Adorno once remarked that modernism does not negate earlier art forms. This essay is a critique from a modernist posi- tion of"negative commitment" of many of the processes of fragmentation and fetish- ization that the present essay seeks to address. not negate. see PhilipJohnson. history is not returned." Theo- dor Adorno writes: "The promise of happiness. the adversarial. Mies van der Rohe. let alone redeemed. at once standard and schizoid.Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt. a more or less gratuitous veil drawn over the face of social instrumentality. in Anglo-American culture.which means. narcissistic con- noisseurship. 2. as it were. In this sense. in architecture the International Style and in art formalist painting) and then to condemn it as a histori- cal mistake.g. but a history in a history-surrogate. then. the socialist returned to the private estate. eds. the utopian. . In "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening. the use of pastiche in postmodern art and architecture deprives styles not only of specific context but also of historical sense: husked down to so many emblems. is more than a stylistic pro- gram. (New York:Urizen Books. culture after modernism is to be affirmative . pp. Finally. which then and now assumes the form of a pop- ular front of pre. Finally. it is important to see. the strategyof which basically is to reduce modernism to an abstraction (e. which such art and architecture re-enforce. nor negate. 1979). the visionary. Among these sources are projects by Le Cor- busier. 212-226.' If in this postmodernism. Almost the opposite is the case with such postmodernism.. Yet. For the historical sources cited in the Glass House. this redemptive operation meets its historical closure in a work like PhilipJohnson's Glass House. but consider the implications of 1. such postmodern- ism seems less a dialectical supercession of modernism than its old ideological opponent. Ledoux and paintings by Malevich and van Doesburg: in other words. then. ifpostmodern architecture is any indication. in which the reinscription of historical forms becomes a matter of dandyish. it negates traditionperse. from the other side. This popular front. p. 274. In this way. I know. "history" appears reified.and antimodernist elements. this critical enterprise is often reduced to an abstract. once the definition of art.

(originally published in NGC. though Hilton Kramer also views avantgardism as more or less infantile. family. For example. "Modernity . it is largely modernism . they oddly overrate the effectivity of culture. the neoconservatives confound matters .and to advan- tage. the music halls. First. moreover. the magazines. the politics of this program remain much the same . long since gone soft (say.)3 Such a program of reference to quasi-cultic traditions.ed. it is capital that de- structures social forms . . is not a historical novelty: it is often used to beautify reactionary politics.. according to them. if you like. or the decoded "flows" of capital? Certainly.) that the connection to neoconservatism proper must be made. at least on the Left. but lost traditions are imposed on a present which. scandals.but a modernism long ago purged of its subversive elements and set up as official culture in the museums. but what is its real.is mis- taken for transcendence. WA: Bay Press. and in which the corrosive effects of con- sciousness and time are denied by allusion to canonical and clich6d narratives and works. with Olden- burg). in its contradictions. adversary modernism is denounced and a new.mainstream neoconservative. salient cause? The "shock" of a Duchamp urinal. 3. inten- sities . he is not so sanguine about postmodern production.An Incomplete Project. In this sense. religion. 1983). and then blamed for its negative social effects (such as privativism). Meanwhile.the avantgarde only fenced with a few old artistic conventions. 4.. (Thus we have today the manufacture of "master" artists and works in which irrelevance . affirmative postmodernism proposed. This diagnosis ofneoconservative postmodernism owes much toJiirgen Haber- mas. for. by Hal Foster (Port Townsend. For in our time it has emerged as a new political form of antimodernism: neoconservatives like Daniel Bell charge modern (or adversary) cul- ture with the ills of society and seek redress in a return to the verities. Not only are the signs of modernism excised. cultural modernism is severed from its base in economic modernization." Art in America. This leaves him to uphold modernism as the new/old "criterion" . "Honor. Now such ero- sion cannot be denied (nor should it be." in TheAnti-Aesthetic.70 Polemics (Post)Modern a program which elides pre. January 1983. Yet. is far beyond such humanist pieties.that has eroded our traditional social bonds. It is in regard to this return to tradition (in art. here.a lack of historical grounding . the classic neoconservative position: there are variants.4 This is. See Craig Owens. most of which he sees as kitsch.its transgressions. for it is as liberative as it is destructive). With the structural causality of cultural and economic modernity confused.and postmodern elements. 22). Power and the Love of Women.

to fragments that rent rather than transformed the social fabric. and Tafuri's rigorous pathos is at one with the celebrations ofpostmodernism. as Fred- ric Jameson has noted. decides to embrace the other side of the opposition. his paradigm is the urban fabric of 19th-century Paris . Thus. Such contextualism derives from a reactive reading of modernism: its ruptures were posed against historicism.where- as Venturi. FredricJameson.. the Pop architect Venturi . when executed.Jameson concludes: "On any dialectical reading.the MarxistTafuri. which is to postmodern architecture what traditionalism is to postmodern paint- ing and sculpture . unpublished paper on postmodern architecture and architec- tural theory. See Manfredo Tafuri. See Robert Stern. tendentious diagnoses are offered and proscrip- tive prognoses proposed. in that case." in HarvardArchitectural Re- view. But the disruptions of the modern are real enough.in order to transform the past in the present. and indeed. Perhaps. however. for example. Robert Stern. the fallen city fabric of junk buildings and the decorated sheds of the Las Vegas strip. Take. for example. then. 6. These cosmetics."7 5. 7. Manfredo Tafuri has argued that these utopias actually served the ends of both "social planning" and capitalist development (in this sense. in the old American tradition of therapy over analysis. the Tafuri and Venturi positions are dialec- tically one: both read architectural modernism as a failure. Surely no one can deny that. Architecture and Utopia:Design and capitalist Development (Cambridge: MIT Press. from which "Tafurideduces the impossibility of revolutionaryarchitecture. not history . the great modern uto- pian projects were changed utterly. and Stern in architec- ture. Strangely. Belgian architect Leon Krier is perhaps the most provocative contextualist at work today: basically. urban contextualism.agree. the quarter. "The Doubles of Post-Modern. not to foreclose it. it can also be a cure. utopia equals tabularasa).a recipe of such conservatives as John Gardner in fiction. has called for a new "cultural synthesis" .. the rhetorical urgency ofcontextualism owes much to the "catastrophe" of modern architectural utopias. and indeed. finally reveal more contradictions than they resolve. something is to be said .a program that seeks to recoup the ruptures of modernism and to restore continuity with historical forms. Hal Foster 71 If culture seen from the neoconservative position is a cause of social anomie. 1976). these two very different critics . these two seemingly so distinct positions are really one and the same. Daniel Bell in social criticism.6 And Robert Venturi has stressed how such projects were reduced to auton- omous monuments . symptoms are taken for diseases and treated cosmet- ically.5 In short.the street. the square. 1980.

Tafuri. Here. inorganic. ."in multivalent images. to think historically at all? To put it crudely.."8 In this way. we are conditioned to its delirium. Is it not. see Jameson. This style. 9. indeed. articulated against "less is a bore" mod- ernism. and in relation to his- tory they fully erupt." in TheAnti-Aesthetic. so pervasive in cultural production today. commercial) regionalisms. a policy that would reconcile us to our Las Vegases . the contradictions ofneo- conservative postmodernism begin to cry out. So: on one side.which is to say. as both a symptomatic reaction to this chaos and a sympathetic policy that acts as its public (relations) cover or compensation. We have noted that this postmodernism privileges style . as landmarks play the part of "history.indeed.g. this Postmodern Style of History may in fact signal the disintegration of style and the collapse of his- tory. to pastiche. Paris Leon Krier)." with its contradictions resolved ." 8. LasVegas Venturi). it is fair to say that pastiche is the official style of this postmodernist camp.Thus the postmodern Zeitgeist. dis- simulated .that is to say. Thus.to the chaos of contemporary urban development? Here.for a properly Gramscean architecture after all. and mixed in with both. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society. is "considered in terms of a superstructure. the preservationist aspect of contextualism appears in a new light. even as its causes are con- cealed from us.neoconservative postmodernism is revealed by the very cultural moment it would otherwise flee.g. the fabrication of more or less false (i. On the implications of pastiche. Architecture and Utopia. But does not the eclecticism of pastiche (its mix of codes) threaten the very concept of style." postmodern fagades assume the role of"art.." And the city.72 Polemics (Post)Modern But then we must ask what contextualism. a nostalgia for the imageability - and the very typology .on another.e.beyond the closure of this particular double bind . a delight in the contemporary cityscape of capital (e. And it in turn reveals this moment as marked not by a renascence of style but by its implo- for the search . necessarily and in spite of itself . posed against such utopi- anism. further proclaims a return to history. such architectural postmodernism exploits the fragmentary nature of late-capitalist urban life. as Tafuri writes.9 My point is a basic one: dialectically . at least as the singular expression of an individual or a period? And does not the relativism of pastiche (its implosion of period signs) erode the very ability to place historical references . in the name of style and history.Yet nearly every postmodern artistand architect has resorted.in the sense both of the signature style of the artist/architect and of the "spirit" of an age.of the historical city (e. intends.. in part.

1985). first of all. and not by a rebirth of the artist/architect as auteurbut by the death of the author . in opposition to modernism. I would argue much the same about "post-structuralist" postmodernism. (New Museum/David R. not an ontological datum. not by a return of a sense of history but by its erosion. The two also differ in strategy:the neoconservative opposition to modernism is a matter chiefly of style. .10 But more important here is the mutual opposition of these two postmodernisms. its ideology of purely formal innovations) and indeed. historical retrospection in which history is frag- mented and the subject dispersed in its own representations. with a critique of representation. They differ. and history (like reality) is not a given "out there" to capture by allusion. It is on the question of representation. Yet this is to anticipate: we must first see how the two postmodernisms are different. it is difficult to conceive the one with- 10. see Hal Foster." in ArtAfterModernism: Rethinking Brian Wallis ed.. whereas the poststructuralist opposition is of a more epistemological sort. again. of a return to representation.but. Poststructuralistpostmodernism. but a narrative to construct or (better) a concept to produce.g. II Lest this criticism seem too tilted. Representation. Indeed. because it is recuper- ated. It is the critique of representation that aligns this postmodernism with poststructuralism. rests on a critique of representation: it questions the truth content of visual representation. Godine. symbolic or abstract. For more on this. then. with this proviso: that it assumes this fragmentation of history. not without its own ideological reasons. from the poststructuralist position. on the other hand. "Re:Post.as origin and center of meaning. this dispersal of the subject as given . Hal Foster 73 sion in pastiche. concerned with the discursive paradigms of the modern (e. whether realist. modernism must be displaced because it is catastrophic: from the poststructuralist position. From the neoconservative position. that the two postmod- ernisms differ most clearly. history is an epistemological problem.and explores the regimes of meaning and order that those dif- ferent codes support. In short. Neoconservative postmodernism advo- cates a return to representation: it takes the referential status of its images and meaning for granted. From the poststructuralist position the neoconser- vative style of history is doubly misconceived: style is not created of free expression but is spoken through cultural codes. Such is the postmodern present of hysterical.

"lies in the use of the characteristicmethods of a discipline itself not in order to subvert it. whereas the text reflects on the contemporary dissolution of the sign and the released play of signifiers."'2 The difference between the two rests finally on this: for the work the sign is a stable unit of signifier and signified (with the referent assured or. is the model that came to dominate American art and 11. .""' This theoretical redefinition of the artifact can also be seen as a his- torical passage from modernist "work" to postmodernist "text. blend and clash.with its valorization of myth and symbol. the identity of the subject and the continuity of linguistic expression . Roland Barthes. the syncope in the experience of the subject.. adamantly high-cultural paradigm of art. "multidimensional space in which a varietyofwritings. the mechanical.. For our purposes. Con- structivism. Clement Greenberg. the lapse in meaning." Art and Literature.e. "The essence of Modernism. a represent- ed reality or transcendent meaning). in abstraction. however. 1977). The response (at least in the United States)was an apolitical. none of them original. 12. in brief.and foretells the emergence of some new. allegory.g." I use these terms heuristically: "work" to suggest an aesthetic. p. "Modernist Painting. and the rise of an instrumental mass culture far beyond the blandishments of kitsch.' and stressing discontinuity. There were other pressures as well: the diaspora of the moderns under fascism. by Stephen Heath (New York: Hill & Wang.e. protopolitical modernism (e. as I see it..theModernistas Fascist(Berkeley: University of California Press. only two questions are important here: How does the postmodernist text differ from the modernist work as a model of discourse? And how does (poststructuralist)textuality differ from (neoconservative) pastiche as a form of representation? After the failure of utopian.Spring 1965. trans." Clement Greenberg wrote in 1965. the gap between signifier and signified. AsJameson writes:"The contemporary poststructuralist aesthetic signals the dissolution of the modernist paradigm . 13. organic form and the concrete universal.'3 Here." in Image/Music/Text. the Bauhaus) on the one hand. but to entrench it more firmly in its area of com- petence. Jameson. the author) and an end (i. FablesofAggression:WyndhamLewis. properly postmodernist or schizophrenic conception of the artifact- now strategically reformulated as 'text' or '6criture.74 Polemics (Post)Modern out the other. symbolic whole sealed by an origin (i. a new model of modernism was needed. which shifted the discursive "essence" of modernism from utopi- anism and transgression to self-criticism and aesthetic purity. 1979). and "text" to suggest an a- aesthetic. temporality. bracketed). "The Death of the Author. 20.

to stem the reduction of art in general to entertainment. "Avant-Gardeand Kitsch.the medium. and nowhere is this more apparent than in its discursive orientation:for what self-criticism is to modernist practice.has changed. of course. modern art turned with- in "to keep culture moving. As paradigms. 1961).'4 But as its criticality declined into rhetorical exercise without repercussive affect. and a critique of representation is wholly different from a recycling of pop.but epistemologically. the art field . precisely. pure and simple. then. Hal Foster 75 criticism at mid-century . derives from this modernism.a self-critical program (Greenberg refers specifically to the Enlightenment) pledged to maintain the high quality of past art in current production. to subvert the discipline. then." then the "essence" of postmodernism is to do the same but in order. then. grounded in separate areas of competence. temporal versus spatial).ontologically and epis- temologically. The old Enlightenment decorum of distinct forms of mediums of expression (visual versus literary."in Artand Culture(Boston: Beacon Press. against a modernism become monolithic in its self-referentiality and official in its autonomy. In general.or pseu- dohistorical images . to ensure the aesthetic as a value in its own right. Think of the difference in this way: if the "essence" of modernism is to use the methods of a discipline in order "to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence."to resist on the one hand the Alexandrian- ism of the academy and on the other the debasement of kitsch. And with the destructuring of the object and its field comes a decentering of the subject. how distinct are they? Take as examples of opposed postmodernist practices the "decom- posed" architecture of Peter Eisenman and the cubistic-classical archi- 14. that the artobject . postmodernist art is concerned notwith the formal purity of traditional artistic mediums. the deconstruction of an art or discipline is quite other than its instrumental pastiche. is no longer obeyed. but with textual "impurity" - the interconnections of power and knowledge in social representa- tions. at least initially. deconstruction is to post- modernist practice. Postmodernist art "disentreches" its given medium. both artist and audience. not only as an autonomous acitivity but also as a mode of representation with assured referential value and/or ontological status. Greenberg. On the Greenbergian account. this turn within atrophied into withdrawal into opacity. But postmodernism also. the postmodernist text and the modernist work are distinct. It is in these terms. . but what of(poststructuralist) textuality and (neoconserva- tive) pastiche? Stylisticallyand politically. and to ground art . And postmodernist art is posed.indeed. the discipline .

one may explore the traditional language of art or architecture critically. modernist practices of critical collage have become mere devices. The practices of Eisenman and Anderson are articulated quite dif- ferently. in order to decen- ter the (masculine) subject of such representation. That is beyond the scope of this essay. indeterminate. And unlike Schnabel. the other exploits it instrumentally. then we need to consider more deeply what (post)modernism might be .to be one with the poststructuralist"critique" of the same. he uses the very modes of architectural representation (primarily. or the multi-media image-spectacles of Laurie Anderson and the macho painterly confections ofJulian Schna- bel. but as a discipline to be deconstructed precisely with its own methods. representation disentrenched. to render cultural meanings ambiguous. This said. not challenged . of the referent. but though they collide different signs. they do so not to question them as representations or clich6s.76 (Post)ModernPolemics tecture of Michael Graves. and the sense of history. instrumental tricks:the sign.and the same goes for the old sovereignty of the architect and artistas expressive origin of unique meaning. but the questions that arise in the (post)modern problematic are clear: the 15. to representa- tion. so opposed in style and politics. If this is the case. In effect. eroded in both? Granted. Unlike Graves. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society.signs of the same process of reification and fragmentation under late capitalism.historically. Indeed. dialectically . but both practices reflect its breakdown.how to periodize it. are indeed historically one. do these opposed practices of textuality and pastiche dif- fer in any deep epistemicway? Whatever else is claimed for them. to history may be revealed . enclosed within a frame. at once fetishized and fragmen- ted and exhibited as such. is resolved in a signature look. SeeJameson.'" And if these two models ofpostmodernism. Eisenman reflects on architecture not as a repository of stylistic attributes to be collaged. For example. how to conceive it as a problematic. Graves seems to invest as much meaning in his typical keystone motif as Schnabel does in his thoroughly reified expressionism. Anderson uses the art-historicalor pop-cultural clich6 against itself. Both Gravesand Schnabel pastiche art-historicaland pop-cultural references. in the work of both.which is thus both object and representation. then the neoconservative "return" to the subject. pastiche and textuality may be symptoms of the same"schizophrenic" collapse of the subject and historical narrativity. In short. to pluralize the social self." . the axonomet- ric drawing and model) to generate the actual structure . is not the subject decentered. The traditional unity of architecture or painting as a discipline is reaffirmed.

pragmatic. Hal Foster 77 status of the subject and its language. the most dialectical of the FrankfurtSchool. the result may be a position-paper of such fragmentation.. Yet. .and the opacity of representations of woman by Salle and others suggests this is the case. In our culture this state is usually the preserve of woman . if only by default.it requires such rhetoric as its supplement. Meanwhile. is too neat. its support. one-dimensional.as nature. In fact. This is resignation to fragmentation at its most entropic. often preserve this bourgeois subject. a formulaic display of dead. regression is disguised in the usual romantic form of artist as outsider. And indeed the title narrates a regression to a pre- symbolic or schizophrenic state. Salle parades this schizo dis- persal of the subject as a theme. Brother Animal(1983) is a typical painting by David Salle. To end here. and so we must ask: what is this subject that is supposedly dispersed? By way of an answer I want to refer briefly to a few symptomatic works of art. (Even for Adorno. This disavowal comes in many forms: in the unity of the titular theme. On the other hand. of the psyche penetrated by capital. this double-bind does not exist. as other. such a concept. indeed.an inability to mediate subject and other. the radical position of various French critics. may only collude with its agents. for this formulation is flawed. American left artists and theorists are so split. however. exhibits it as a form of fetishistic fascination . the master artist. TheExile (1980) is a representative work by Julian Schnabel. symbolically. Such art revives the mythology of mastery . schizophrenic. not split in relation to desire or decentered in relation to language.but from a position so alienated as to be beyond despair. dispersed images with charge enough only to damp out any con- nection or criticality. To speak of a fragmented subject is to presuppose a prior moment or model in which the subject is whole and complete. For some. it is self-deconstructive. to resolve them dialec- tically. wheth- er heuristic or historical. this subject often seems the counterterm of the decay of the ego in the culture industry. if only in opposition. Yet the left positions on the subject are only somewhat less troublesome. On the Right this tendency is manifest in a nostalgic insistence on the good strong self. so ambivalent about this issue that they tend to exhibit the very "schizophrenia" that is in question here . patriarchal. however. I would submit. Diagnoses of our culture as regressive. of history and its representation. celebrations of this dispersal.. Here. not its counter-discourse.the master work. is problematic. this rhetoric is exposed here and elsewhere. Like many others. its zero degree. as object . Re- ification and fragmentation are revealed even as they are disavowed.and ideological in the extreme. most cool. Schnabel has often painted martyr-figures.

In other words. is so bemoaned? Bourgeois perhaps. to Freud. of the West. a substitute that covers up alack .78 Polemics (Post)Modern the device of the frame. of culture. SMinPleasant lSt. But for others. fetishistic materials par excellence. Here. threatened by loss.alack. it is a substitute that denies sexual difference.it is the phal- locentric order of subjectivity. Essays. Pleasure and Power Samuel Weber and Opera and Dramaturgyin Klaus Zahelein Frankfurt Plus Reviews. the antlers in particular. this is indeed a great loss . Cultural Politics enclitic is a review of film. Fiction. Minneapolis. MN 55455 455entic e c i i . enclitic 15/16 1984 SPECIALDOUBLEISSUE CriticalReconsiderations: Postmodernism. ifyou like. Poetry and Photography $8.and may lead to narcissistic laments about the end of art. then. the person of the artist. it is an object that serves as a substitute for the penis thought to be castrated. precisely for Others. patriarchal certainly . this is no great loss at all. But more. for many. For some.E. (Schnabel also often paints on velvet and furs. literary and culturalcriticism that provides an engaging forum for practical and theoreticaldiscussionof changing issues in the Humanities and Social Sciences Jochen Schulte-Sasse The Use-Value of Popular Literatureand Culture: Identification and Reflexivity in Adorno and Benjamin Jiirgen Link For Althusser Alan Singer Desire's Desire: Towards an Historical Formalism Wlad Godzich The Cultureand Politics of Illiteracy LawrenceGrossberg "I'dRather Feel Bad Than Not Feel Anything At All'":Rock and Roll.) What is a fetish? Simply.History. But not the fetishistic nature of this painting. we begin to see what is at stake in this so-called dispersal of the subject.00 200 Folwell Hall S. ofmastery. For what is this subject that.