E. The Duchamp Effect - Hal Foster

What's Neo about the Neo-Avant-Garde?
Author(s): Hal Foster

Source: October, Vol. 70, The Duchamp Effect (Autumn, 1994), pp. 5-32
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779051 .
Accessed: 09/12/2013 23:41
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
What'sNeo about the
Neo-Avant-Garde?
HAL FOSTER
It is no secretthatpostwarculturein NorthAmericaand WesternEurope is

swampedbyneosand posts.Apartfromthe eclecticismof recentartand architecture,
there are a myriadrepetitionsin the postwarperiod: how are we to distinguish
themin kind?How to tellthe difference betweena returnof an archaicformof art
thatbolstersconservativetendenciesin the presentand a returnto a lost model
of artmade in order to displace customarywaysofworking?Or, in the registerof
history,how to tell the differencebetweena revisionistaccount writtenin support
of the culturalstatusquo and a genealogicalaccount thatseeks to challenge it?In
realitythese returnsare more complicated,even more compulsive-especiallynow
at the end of the centuryas revolutionsat its beginningappear to be undone, and
as formationsthoughtto be long dead stiragain withuncannylife.
In postwarart the problem of repetitionis primarilythe problem of the
neo-avant-garde,a loose grouping of North American and WesternEuropean
artistsof the 1950s and '60s who reprisedand revisedsuch avant-gardedevicesof
the 1910s and '20s as collage and assemblage,the readymadeand the grid,mono-
chrome paintingand constructedsculpture.1No rule governsthe returnof these
devices: no one instance is strictlycontrived,concerted,or compulsive.Here I
want to focus on recapitulationsthat aspire to criticality,
and to do so initially
througha remarkof Michel Foucault made in early 1969, i.e., in the heydayof
such returns.
In "What Is an Author?"Foucault writesin passing of Marx and Freud as
"initiatorsof discursivepractices,"and he asks whya returnis made at particular
moments to the originarytextsof Marxismand psychoanalysis, a returnin the
1. PeterBiirgerposes the problemof the neo-avant-garde in Theory oftheAvant-Garde

(1974), more
on whichbelow; but it is BenjaminBuchloh who has developed the specificproblematicof these para-
digm repetitionsin severaltextsover the lastfifteen years,mostdirectlyin "The PrimaryColors forthe
Second Time: A ParadigmRepetitionof the Neo-Avant-Garde," October 37 (Summer 1986). My textis
writtenin close dialoguewithhis fundamentalbodyofcriticism, and I willtryto clarify
mydebtsas wellas
mydifferences as I go along. I also wantto thankaudiencesat the CUNY GraduateCenter,the Universit6
de Montreal (especiallyJohanne Lamoureux), and the Center for twentieth-Century Studies at the
UniversityofWisconsin-Milwaukee (especiallyKathleenWoodward, Jane Gallop,and HerbertBlau).
OCTOBER 70,Fall 1994,pp. 5-32. ? 1994 Hal Foster.

6 OCTOBER
formof a rigorousreading.2The implicationis that,iftrulyradical (in the sense

of radix:to the root), the readingwillnot be anotheraccretionof the discourse;
on the contrary, itwillcut throughthe layersof paraphraseand pastichethathave
obscured its theoreticalcore and blunted its political edge. Foucault names no
names,but he likelyhas in mind the readingsof Marx and Freud made byLouis
Althusserand Jacques Lacan respectively. (Again,he writesin early1969, or four
years afterAlthusserpublished For Marx and ReadingCapital,and threeyearsafter
the Ecritsof Lacan appeared-and just monthsafterMay 1968, a momentin anti-
historicistconstellationwithpriorrevolutionary moments.)In each case the stake
of the returnis the structureof the discoursestrippedof additions:not so much
whatMarxismor psychoanalysis means as how it acts and signifies-and howit has
transformedour concepts of action and signification.Thus in the early 1960s,
afteryearsof existentialistreadingsbased on the earlyMarx (made in the wakeof
the belated discoveryof his 1844 manuscriptsin the 1930s),Althusserperformsa
structuralistreading based on the mature Marx of Capital. For Althusser,of
course, this is the "scientific"Marx of the epistemologicalrupturethatchanged
politicsand philosophyforever, not the "ideological"Marx hung up on humanist
problems such as alienation. For his part,in the early1950s,afteryearsof thera-
peutic adaptations of psychoanalysis,Lacan performsa linguistic reading of
Freud. For Lacan, of course, thisis the radical Freud who revealsour decentered
relationto the language of our unconscious,not the humanistFreud of the ego
psychologiesdominantat the time.
The moves withinthese two returnsare different:Althusserdefinesa lost
breakwithinMarx,whereasLacan articulatesa latentconnection betweenFreud and
Ferdinandde Saussure,the contemporaneousfounderof structurallinguistics,a
connectionimplicitin Freud (e.g., in his analysisof the dreamas a processof con-
densationand displacement,a rebusof metaphorand metonymy)but impossible
for him to thinkas such given the epistemologicallimitsof his own historical
position.3But the methodof these returnsis similar:to focuson "theconstructive
2. Michel Foucault, Language,Counter-Memory, Practice,ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press,1977), pp. 113-38. To mymind "Whatis an Author?"is more usefulvis-A-vis critical
art of the 1960s and '70s than its more influentialcounterpart,"The Death of the Author"byRoland
Barthes,preciselybecause, like the art,it examines the discursivefunctionof the author ratherthan
announces its apocalypticend. In HistoryofSexuality(vol. 1, 1976) Foucault reviseshis view of the
epistemologicalrupturerepresentedbyFreud.
3. Lacan details thisconnectionin "The Agencyof the Letterin the Unconscious"(1957), and in
"The Meaning of the Phallus" (1958) he deems it fundamentalto his returnto Freud: "It is on the
basis of such a wager-laid down byme as the principleofa commentaryofFreud'sworkwhichI have
been pursuingfor seven years-that I have been led to certain conclusions:above all, to argue, as
necessaryto any articulationof analyticphenomena, for the notion of the signifier, in the sense in
whichit is opposed to thatof the signifiedin modernlinguisticanalysis.The latter,born since Freud,
could not be taken into account by him, but it is mycontentionthat Freud's discoverystands out
preciselyforhavinghad to anticipateits formulas,even whilesettingout froma domain in whichone
could hardlyexpect to recogniseitssway.Conversely, it is Freud'sdiscoverythatgivesto the opposition
of signifierto signifiedthe fullweightwhichit should imply:namely,that the signifierhas an active

What'sNeoabouttheNeo-Avant-Garde? 7
omission"fundamentalto each discourse.4Similar,too, are the motives:not only

to restorethe radical integrityof the discourse but to challenge its statusin the
present,the receivedideas thatdeformitsstructureand restrictits efficacy. This is
not to claim the finaltruthof such readings (apartfromthe wretchedressentiment
visitedon Althusserand Lacan today,it is hard not to have some doubts about
these figures-or,forthatmatter,the artistsI mentionbelow). On the contraryit
is to clarifythe contingentstrategyof the readings,which is to reconnectwitha
lost practice in order to disconnectfroma presentwayof workingfeltto be out-
moded, misguided,or otherwiseoppressive.The firstmove (re) is a temporalone,
made in order,in a second, spatialmove (dis), to open a new siteforwork.5
Now, amid all the repetitionsin postwarart, are there any returnsin this
radical sense? Certainlynone appear so historicallyfocused and theoretically
rigorous. Some recoveriesare fastand furious,and theytend to reifythe past
practice,to acculturateit in termsof iconographicthematics;thisis oftenthe fate
of the foundobject in the 1950s and the readymadein the 1960s.Other recoveries
are slow and partial,as in the case of Russian Constructivism in the early 1960s
afterdecades of activerepressionand passivemisinformation.6 Some old models of
art appear to returnindependently,as with the various reinventionsof mono-
chrome painting in the 1950s and '60s (Robert Rauschenberg,EllsworthKelly,
function in determining the effectsin which the signifiable appears as submittingto its mark,
becoming throughthatpassion the signified"(in Feminine ed. JulietMitchelland Jacqueline
Sexuality,
Rose [New York:W.W.Norton,1985], p. 78).
A similarstrategyof historicalconnection has begun to transformmoderniststudies (in a way
thatmightpoint to a convergencebetweenold semioticand social-historical approaches). In a recogni-
tion deferreduntil our own time some criticshave linked Saussurean linguisticsto high-modernist
reformulationsof the artisticsign: in primitivistCubism (Yve-AlainBois, "Kahnweiler's Lesson,"
Representations18 [Spring 1987]); in Cubist collage (Rosalind Krauss,"The Motivationof the Sign,"
in Picassoand Braque:A Symposium, ed. Lynn Zelevansky(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1992);
in the Duchampian readymade (Benjamin Buchloh in various texts).On another axis T. J. Clark has
juxtaposed the fantasmaticfiguresof the late C6zanne withthe sexual theoriesof the earlyFreud; and
in CompulsiveBeautyI connect Surrealismwiththe contemporaneoustheoryof the death drive.
4. Foucault: "Ifwe return,it is because of a basic and constructiveomission,an omissionthatis not
the result of accident or incomprehension.... This nonaccidental omission must be regulated by
precise operationsthatcan be situated,analysed,and reduced in a returnto the act of initiation.Both
the cause of the barrier and the means for its removal, this omission-also responsible for the
obstacles thatpreventreturningto the act of initiation-can onlybe resolvedbya return.... It follows
naturallythatthisreturn... is not a historicalsupplementthatwouldcome to fixitselfupon theprimary
discursivityand redouble it in the formof an ornament.... Rather,it is an effectiveand necessary
means of transforming discursivepractice"("Whatis an Author?"p. 135).
5. Of course these practicesare not lostand found,nor did theydisappear.There was continuous
workon Marx,Freud, and (even more importantfor theoryof the time) Nietzsche,just as therewas
on the historicalavant-garde;indeed, there is continuitywiththe neo-avant-gardein the person of
Duchamp alone. Yetin spiteof thiswork,sometimes becauseofit,importantaspectsof all these discourses
were misplaced-this is the omissionthatFoucault remarksand thatI attemptto theorizebelow.
6. See Buchloh, "Constructing(the Historyof) Sculpture,"in Reconstructing Modernism, ed. Serge
Guilbaut (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), as well as my "Some Uses and Abuses of Russian
Constructivism," in ArtintoLife:Russian Constructivism 1914-1932, ed. Richard Andrews (New York:
Rizzoli,1990).

8 OCTOBER
Lucio Fontana,Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni,Ad Reinhardt,RobertRyman,and so

on). Other old models are combined in apparentcontradiction,as when in the
early 1960s artistslike Dan Flavin and Carl Andre draw on differentaspects of
diverse precedents like Marcel Duchamp and ConstantinBrancusi,Alexander
Rodchenko and Kurt Schwitters,or when Donald Judd contrives an almost
Borgesian array of precursors in his 1965 manifesto "Specific Objects."
Paradoxically,at this crux of the postwarperiod, ambitiousart is markedby an
expansionofallusionas muchas bya reductionofformor a withdrawal ofincident.
Such art ofteninvokesdifferent, even incommensuratemodels of practice,but
less to act themout in a hystericalpastiche (as in much artin the 1980s) than to
work them through to a reflexiveway of working-to turn the contradictions
inscribed in these models into a critical consciousness of history,artisticand
otherwise.Thus thereis a method to the madnessof theJudd listof precursors,
especiallywhereit appears mostincoherent,as in itsjuxtapositionof the opposed
traditionsof Duchamp and New YorkSchool Painting.It is a method thatseeks
not only to extracta new practicefromthese traditionsbut to trumpthemas it
goes-in this case to move beyond "objectivity" (whether nominalist as in
Duchampian practice or formalistas in New York School Painting) to "specific
objects."7
This particular move raises the two returnsin the late 1950s and early
1960s thatmightqualifyas radical in the aforementionedsense: the readymades
of Duchampian Dada and the contingentstructuresof Russian Constructivism
of Tatlin or the hangingconstructionsof
like the counter-reliefs
(i.e., structures,
Rodchenko, thatreflectboth inwardlyon material,form,and structureand out-
wardlyon space, light,and context). Immediatelytwo kinds of questions arise.
Whydo these returnsoccur then? And what relationshipbetween momentsof
appearance and reappearance do theypose? Are the postwarmomentspassive
repetitions of the prewar moments, or does the neo-avant-gardeact on the
historicalavant-gardein waysthatwe can onlynow appreciate?
Let me respond to the historicalquestion briefly;then I will focus on the
theoreticalquestion,whichhas to do withavant-gardetemporality and narrativity.
My account of the return of the Dadaist readymade and the Constructivist
structurewillcome as no surprise.Howeverdifferent aestheticallyand politically,
the two paradigms are alike in this respect: theyboth contest the bourgeois
7. For a discussionof thistrumping,see my"The Crux of Minimalism," in Individuals,

ed. Howard
Singerman (Los Angeles: MOCA, 1986). It is not unique to Judd; his entire generationconfronted
what Buchloh calls the "painterlyperipety"posed most starklyby Frank Stella ("Formalismand
Historicity:ChangingConcepts in Americanand European Artsince 1945,"in Europein theSeventies,
ed. Anne Rorimer[Chicago: ArtInstituteof Chicago, 1977], p. 101). Neitheris the methodof contra-
dictorycombinationspecificto NorthAmericanart. For example, of the labels made for the 1972
Diusseldorfversion of his celebrated exhibition Mus e d'ArtModerneMarcel Broodthaers once
remarked:"'This is nota workofart' is a formulaobtainedbythe contractionofa conceptbyDuchamp
and an antitheticalconcept by Magritte" ("Ten Thousand Franc Reward" [1974], interviewwith
IrmelineLebeer, October42 [Fall 1987], p. 47).

AlexanderRodchenko.Circa 1924. Carl Andre. 1959.
principlesof autonomousart and expressiveartist,the firstthroughan embrace

of everydayobjects and a pose of aestheticindifference, the second throughthe
use of quasi-industrialmaterialsand the transformation of the functionof the
artist (especially in the Productivistphase of agit-propcampaigns and factory
projects).8Thus, for NorthAmerican and WesternEuropean artistsin the late
1950s and early1960s,Dada and Constructivism offeredtwohistoricalalternatives
to the modernistmodel dominant at the time, the medium-specificformalism
developed by Roger Fryand Clive Bell forPost-Impressionism and its aftermath,
and refinedby Clement Greenbergand Michael Fried for the New York School
and its aftermath.Since this model was staked on the intrinsicautonomy of
modernistpaintingin particular,pledged to the ideals of "significantform"(Bell)
and "pure opticality"(Greenberg), discontentedartistswere drawn to the two
movementsthatsoughtto exceed thisapparentautonomy:to definethe institution
of art in an epistemological inquiry into its aesthetic knowledges and/or to
destroyit in an anarchisticattackon its formalconventions,as did Dada, or to
transform itaccordingto the materialistpracticesof a revolutionarysociety,as did
8. Obviouslyboth formulations requirequalification.Not all the readymadesare everyday objects;

and thoughI disagreewithaestheticistreadings(e.g., WilliamCamfield,"MarcelDuchamp's Fountain:
AestheticObject, Icon, or Anti-Art?"
in TheDefinitively
Unfinished MarcelDuchamp,ed. Thierryde Duve
[Cambridge:MIT Press,1991]), mostare hardlyindifferent objects. (For one indicationof theirover-
determination,see the recentessaysof MollyNesbit,"ReadymadeOriginals,"October 37 [Summer1986],
and "The Language of Industry,"in TheDefinitively Unfinished.) As for Constructivism, its industrial
ambitionswerefoiledat manylevels-materials,training,factory integration,culturalpolicy.

10 OCTOBER
Constructivism-in any case to repositionart in relation not only to mundane

space-timebut to social practiceas well.Of course the repressionof thesepractices
withinthe dominantaccount only added to the attraction,accordingto the old
avant-gardistassociationof the criticalwiththe marginal.
For the most part these recoverieswere self-aware:oftentrainedin novel
academic programs(the M.F.A.degreewas developed at thistime),manyartistsin
the late 1950s and early1960s studiedprewaravant-gardes witha theoreticalrigor
new to thisgeneration;and some began to practiceas criticsin waysquite distinct
frommodernist-oracular precedents (thinkof the earlytextsof RobertMorris,
RobertSmithson,Mel Bochner,and Dan Grahamalone). In the UnitedStatesthis
historicalawarenesswas furthercomplicatedby the receptionof the avant-garde
throughthe veryinstitutionthatit oftenattacked:not onlythe museumof artbut
the museumof modern art. If artistsin the 1950s had mostlyrecycledavant-garde
devices, artistsin the 1960s had to elaborate them critically;the pressure of
historicalawarenesspermittednothingless.9It is thiscomplicatedrelationbetween
prewarand postwaravant-gardes, the theoreticalquestionof avant-gardecausality,
and
temporality, narrativity, that is crucialto comprehendtoday.Far froma quaint
question, more and more depends on it: our veryaccountsof innovativeWestern
artof the centurynow thatwe approachitsend.10
The central text on this question remains TheoryoftheAvant-Garde by the

German critic Peter Buirger.Now twentyyears old, it still frames intelligent
discussionsof historicaland neo-avant-gardes(indeed BUirgerfirstmade these
termscurrent),so even todayit is importantto workthroughhis thesis.Some
of his blind spots are now well marked.11His descriptionis ofteninexact,and his
definition is overly selective (Buirger focuses on the early readymades of
9. On this score the opposition of American "formalism"and European "historicity" that struc-
turesthe Buchloh texton "ChangingConceptsin Americanand European ArtSince 1945"is too stark.
10. I should clarifythe two major presuppositionsof this text: the value of the constructof the
avant-gardeand the need for new narrativesof its genealogy.The problemswith the avant-garde
should be familiar,especiallyto readers of thisjournal: its ideology of progress,its presumptionof
its elitisthermeticism,
originality, its appropriationbycultureindustries,and
its historicalexclusivity,
so on. And yet this constructremains the crucial co-articulationof culturaland political formsof
thoughtand action withinmodernity-an obvious fact that is oftendismissedtodayas a deluded
Leninisthangover.It is thisco-articulationthata posthistoricalaccount of the neo-avant-garde,as well
as an eclecticistnotion of the postmodern,worksto undo. Thus the need fornew genealogiesof the
avant-garde, ones thatboth complicateitspastand pluralizeitspresent.
11. Theory oftheAvant-Garde provokedimmediatedebate in Germany,and a collectionof responses
was publishedin 1976 (W. M. Liidke,ed., "Theorie "Antworten
derAvant-garde. aufPeter Bestimmung
Biirgers
von Kunstund bisrgerlicher [Frankfurt:
Gesellschaft SuhrkampVerlag], to whichBfirgerresponded in a
1979 essay that now introducesthe Englishversionof his book (trans.Michael Shaw [Minneapolis:
University of MinnesotaPress,1984]; all subsequentcitationsin the text).There are also manyreviews
and responsesin English,the mostpointed of whichremainsthatof Buchloh,"Theorizingthe Avant-
Garde,"ArtinAmerica, vol. 72 (November1984); it informssome of the pointsmade below.

Duchamp, the earlychance experimentsof Andre Bretonand Louis Aragon,the

earlyphotomontagesofJohnHeartfield).Moreover,hisverypremiseis problematic
-that one theorycan comprehend theavant-garde,that all its activitiescan be
subsumed under the project to destroythe falseautonomyof bourgeois art. And
yetthese problemspale next to his dismissalof the postwaravant-gardeas merely
neo,as so much repetitionin bad faiththat cancels the prewarcritique of the
institutionof art. Here Bfirgerprojects the historicalavant-gardeas an absolute
originwhose aesthetic transformations are fullysignificantand historicallyeffec-
tive in the firstinstance. This is tenuous from several points of view. For a
poststructuralistsuch a claim of self-presenceis theological; for a theoristof
receptionit is impossible.Did Duchamp appearas "Duchamp"?Of course not, and
yet he is often presented thus, full-blown from his own forehead. Did Les
Demoisellesd'Avignon of Picasso emerge as the crux of modernistpaintingthat it is
now taken to be? Obviouslynot, and yetit is oftentreatedas immaculatein con-
ception and reception. The status of Duchamp as well as Les Demoisellesis a
retroactiveeffectof countless artisticresponses and critical readings,and so it
goes across the dialogical space-time of avant-gardepractice and institutional
reception.12This blind spot in Buirgerconcerning the deferredtemporalityof
artisticsignificationis especiallyironic,forhe is oftenpraised forhis attentionto
the historicityof aesthetic categories, and, to a certain degree, this praise is
earned.13So where (at leastaccordingto mylights)does he go astray?
BiUrgerbegins with the premise fundamental to Marxistcriticism,for it
alone permitsone to historicize,the premiseof "a connection betweenthe develop-
mentof [an] object and the possibilityof [its] cognition"(li).14Accordingto this
premise,our understandingof an art can be only as advanced as the art, and it
leads Bfirgerto his principalargument:thatthe avant-gardecritiqueof bourgeois
art depended on the developmentof thisart,in particularon threestageswithin
its history.The firststage occurs when the autonomyof art is proclaimedby the
end of the eighteenthcentury,that is, in Enlightenmentaesthetics.The second
stage occurs when thisautonomyis made over into the verysubjectof art by the
end of the nineteenthcentury, thatis,in artthataspiresnot so much to abstraction
12. Of course encounters withart and between artistscan be punctual, but the effectsof these
puncta(to borrowa termfromthe Barthesof CameraLucida) are not oftenimmediate.Nevertheless,it
is in termsof immediateinfluencethatnarrativesof both avant-gardeand traditionalartare written.
13. "What makes Bfirgerso important," Jochen Schulte-Sassewritesin his forewordto Theory ofthe
Avant-Garde, "is thathis theoryreflectsthe conditionsof its own possibilities"(xxxiv). This is true of
its theoretical preconditions, especially as given by the FrankfurtSchool, but not of its artistic
preconditions.As Buchloh notes in his reviewand as I develop below,Bfirgeris obliviousto practices
withinthe neo-avant-gardethatdo preciselywhathe saysit cannot do, whichis to develop the critique
of the institutionof art.
14. On the ramificationsof thispremiseforthe formationof art historyas a discipline,see M. M.
Bakhtin/P.M. Medvedev,"The Formal Method in European ArtScholarship,"in TheFormalMethodin
LiteraryScholarship (1928), trans.AlbertJ. Wehrle (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress,
1978), pp. 41-53.

12 OCTOBER
as to aestheticism.And the thirdstage occurswhenthisaestheticismcomes under

attackby the historicalavant-gardeat the beginningof thiscentury, forexample,
in the explicitProductivistdemand that art regain a use-value,or the implicit
Dadaist demand thatit at least acknowledgeits uselessness-value-i.e.,the actual
affirmation of the culturalorder concealed in its apparentwithdrawalfromit.15
AlthoughBiirgerinsiststhat this developmentis uneven and contradictory(he
alludes to the notion of the nonsynchronousdeveloped by ErnstBloch), he still
narratesit as an evolution.Perhaps he could not conceive it otherwise,givenhis
strictreadingof the Marxistpremiseabout the connectionbetweenan objectand
itsunderstanding.
Marx advances thispremisein a textthatBfirgercitesbut does not discuss,
the introduction to Grundrisse(1858), the draftnotes preparatoryto Capital
(volume 1, 1867). At one point in these extraordinary sketchesMarx muses that
his fundamentalinsights-not only the labor theoryof value but the historical
dynamicof class struggle-could not be articulateduntilhis own time,the timeof
an advancedbourgeoisie:
Bourgeois societyis the most developed and the most complex

historicorganizationof production.The categorieswhichexpressits
relations, the comprehension of its structure,therebyalso allows
insightsinto the structureand the relationsof productionof all the
vanished social formationsout of whose ruins and elements it built
itselfup, whose mere nuances have developed explicit significance
withinit, etc. Human anatomycontains a key to the anatomyof the
ape. The intimationsof higherdevelopmentamong the subordinate
animal species, however,can be understood only afterthe higher
developmentis known.The bourgeoiseconomythus supplies the key
to the ancient,etc.16
This analogy between socioeconomic evolution and anatomical evolution is
telling.Evoked as an illustrationof developmentas recapitulation,it is neither
accidental nor arbitrary:it is there in his epistemologicalhorizon for Marx to
think;it arises almostnaturallyin his text.And thatis the problem,forto model
historicaldevelopmentafterbiologicaldevelopmentis to naturalizeit,despitethe
factthatMarxwas the firstto definethismove as the ideologicalone par excellence.
This is not to dispute that our understandingcan be only as developed as its
object,but it is to questionhowwe thinkthisdevelopment-howwe thinkcausality,
temporality,narrativity.Clearly it cannot be thought in termsof historicism
15. A Productivist evenin theotherwiseanarchistic

demand mayalso be implicitin some readymades,
formulaof the reciprocalreadymades:"use a Rembrandtas an ironingboard" (Duchamp, "The Green
ofMarcelDuchamp,ed. Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson
Box" [1934], in TheEssentialWritings
[London: Thames & Hudson, 1975], p. 32).
16. Marx,Grundrisse,trans.MartinNicolaus (NewYork:VintageBooks,1973), p. 105.

What'sNeo about theNeo-Avant-Garde? 13
(defined most simplyas the conflationof before and afterwith cause and effect).
Despite manycritiques in different disciplines,historicism stillpervadesarthistory,
especially modernist studies, as it has from its Hegelian founders to curatorsand
criticslike AlfredBarr and Clement Greenbergand beyond.17Above all else it is
this persistenthistoricismthat condemns contemporaryart to the statusof the
belated,the redundant,the repetitious.
Along witha tendencyto take the avant-garderhetoricof ruptureat its own
word,thisresidual evolutionismleads Biirgerto presenthistoryas both punctual
and final. Thus for him a workof art, a shiftin aesthetics,happens all at once,
entirelysignificant in its firstmomentof appearance, and it happens once and for
all, so thatanyelaborationis onlya rehearsal.This conception of historyas punc-
tual and finalunderlieshis narrativeof the historicalavant-gardeas pure origin
and the neo-avant-gardeas riven repetition.This is bad enough, but thingsget
worse,forto repeat the historicalavant-garde,accordingto Bfirger, is to cancel its
critique of the institution of autonomous art;more, it is to invert this critiqueinto
an affirmation of autonomous art. Thus, if readymadesand collages challenged
the bourgeois principles of expressiveartistand organic art work,neo-ready-
mades and neo-collages reinstatethem. So, too, if Dada attacks audience and
marketalike, neo-Dada gesturesare adapted to them. And so on down the line:
forBiirgerthe repetitionof the historicalavant-gardebythe neo-avant-gardecan
onlyturnthe antiaestheticinto the artistic,the transgressive into the institutional.
There is truthhere of course. The proto-Popand nouveau-rdaliste receptionof
the readymadedid tend to render it formaland/or arbitrary, to recoup it as art
and/or commodity.When Johns bronzed and painted his two Ballantine ales
(upon a remarkof Willemde Kooning,legend has it, thatLeo Castellicould sell
anythingas art, even beer cans), he did reduce the Duchampian performative
of the urinal as an ambiguous (non)work of art. So, too, when Arman collected
and composed his assistedreadymades,he did invertthe Duchampian principle
of aesthetic indifference. More egregiously,with figures like Klein Dadaist
transgressionis turned into bourgeois spectacle, "an avant-gardeof dissipated
scandals," as Smithson once remarked.18But this is not the entire storyof the
neo-avant-garde,nor does it end there. (One projectin the 1960s,I willargue, is
17. If Hegel and Kant preside over the disciplineof art history,one cannot escape historicismby a
turnfromthe formerto the latter.Formalismhas its historicismstoo, as is manifestin the Green-
bergianhistoricismwherebyartisticinnovationproceeds throughformalself-criticism. In severaltexts
in the 1970s Rosalind Kraussattackedthisparticularhistoricism(e.g., "A View of Modernism,""Sense
and Sensibility,""Notes on the Index," "Sculpturein the Expanded Field"), oftenfroma structuralist
perspective,but today,of course, thishistoricist/structuralist
oppositionmustalso be exceeded.
18. Smithsonin response to a question fromIrvingSandler concerning the status of the avant-
garde in 1966, in The Writings ofRobert ed. NancyHolt (New York:New YorkUniversityPress,
Smithson,
1979), p. 216. "A new generation of Dadaists has emerged today,"Richard Hamilton wrotein 1961,
"but Son of Dada is accepted" ("For the FinestArt,TryPop," Gazette, 1 [1961]). In this textof Pop
"affirmation" Hamilton seems to welcome the shiftfromthe transgression-value of the avant-garde
objectto the spectacle-valueof the neo-avant-gardecelebrity.

14 OCTOBER
to critique
the old charlatanryof the bohemianartistas wellas the newinstitution-
alityof the avant-garde.)19
Yetthe storydoes end thereforBfirger, mostlybecause
he failsto recognizethe ambitiousart of his time-a potentiallyfatalflawof any
historian-theoristof art.As a resulthe can onlysee the neo-avant-gardein totoas
futile and degenerate in romantic relation to the historicalavant-garde,onto
which he thus projectsnot onlya magical effectivity but a pristineauthenticity.
Here, despitehis groundingin Benjamin,Buirger affirmsthevaluesofauthenticity,
originality,and singularity.Critical of the avant-gardein other respects, he
remainswithinitsvalue systemin thisrespect.
However simple, this structureof heroic past versus failed presentis not
stable. Sometimes thesuccessesBfirgercredits to the historicalavant-gardeare
difficultto distinguishfromthefailureshe ascribes to the neo-avant-garde.For
example, he argues that the historicalavant-garderevealsartistic"styles"to be
historical conventions and treats historical conventions as practical "means"
(18-19), a double move fundamentalto its critiqueof art as beyondhistoryand
withoutpurpose. But thismove fromstylesto means,thispassage froma "histori-
cal succession of techniques" to a posthistorical"simultaneityof the radically
disparate"(63), would seem to push artinto the arbitrary. If thisis so, howis this
arbitrarinessof the historicalavant-garde,differentfromthe absurdityof the
neo-avant-garde,"a manifestationthat is void of sense and that permits the
positingof anymeaningwhatever"(61)?20There is a difference, to be sure,but it
is one of degree not of kind,whichpointsto a flowbetweenthe twoavant-gardes
thatBifrgerdoes not otherwiseallow.
My purpose is not to pick apart thistexttwentyyearsafterthe fact,and its
importantthesisis too influentialto dismissout of hand now. RatherI want to
improveon it ifI can, to complicateit throughits own ambiguities-in particular
to intimate a temporal exchangebetween historical and neo-avant-gardes,a
complex relation of anticipation and reconstruction.The Burger narrativeof
directcause and effect,of lapsarianbeforeand after,of heroic originand farcical
repetition,which manyof us recitewithunconsciouscondescensiontowardthe
verypossibilityof contemporary art,thisnarrativewillno longerdo.
At times Bfirgerapproaches such complication,but ultimatelyto resistit.
This is mostmanifestin his account of the failureof the avant-garde.For Bfirger
the historicalavant-gardealsofailed-Duchamp to destroytraditionalartcategories,
Bretonand Aragonto reconcilesubjectivetransgression and social revolution,the
Constructivists to make the culturalmeans of productioncollective-but it failed
Merelyto failagain,as the neo-avant-garde
heroically,tragically. does accordingto
19. On the latterpoint see Buchloh,"MarcelBroodthaers:Allegoriesof the Avant-Garde," Artforum

vol. 18 (May 1980), p. 56.
20. This is strangelysimilarto the charge made by Greenberg,the greatenemyof avant-gardism,
againstMinimalismin particular.See his "Recentnessof Sculpture"(1967), in MinimalArt,ed. Gregory
Battcock(NewYork:Dutton,1968).

Biurger,is at best pathetic and farcical,at worstcynicaland opportunistic.Here

Bi-rgerechoes the famous remarkof Marx in TheEighteenth BrumaireofLouis
Bonaparte (1852), mischievously attributed to Hegel, thatall greateventsof world
history occur twice, the firsttime as tragedy, the second time as farce. (Marx is
concerned with the "tragedy"of Napoleon, masterof the firstFrench Empire,
followedby the "farce"of his nephew Louis Bonaparte, manager of the second
FrenchEmpire.) This trope of tragedyfollowedbyfarceis seductive-its cynicism
is a protectiveresponseto manyhistoricalironies-but it hardlysufficesas a theo-
reticalmodel, let alone as a historicalanalysis.And yetin subtle waysit pervades
criticismof contemporaryart and culture,where its effectis firstto construct the
as
contemporary posthistorical, a simulacral world of failed repetitions and
patheticpastiches,and then to condemn it as such froma mythicalpoint of critical
escape beyond it all. Ultimatelyit is thispoint that is posthistorical,and its per-
spectiveis mostmythicalwhereit purportsto be mostcritical.21
For Bfirger, then,the failureof both historicaland neo-avant-gardes spillsus
all into pluralisticirrelevance,"the positing of any meaning whatever."And he
concludes: "No movementin the arts todaycan legitimatelyclaim to be histori-
callymore advanced as artthan any other" (63). This despair is also seductive-it
has the pathos of all Frankfurt School melancholia-but its fixationon the past is
the other face of the cynicismabout the present that Bfirgerboth scorns and
shares.22And the conclusion is mistaken; it is mistakenhistorically,politically,and
ethically.First,it neglects the verylesson of the avant-gardethatBfirgerteaches
elsewhere: the historicityof art, of all art including the contemporary.It also
neglectsthatan understandingof thishistoricity maybe onecriterionbywhichart
21. This rhetoricalmodel of tragedy-and-farce, it is importantto note, need not produce posthis-
toricaleffects,nor need it affirmthe grandeurof the firstterm.In Marx the firsttermis ironized,not
heroicized, by the second term:the moment of farce tunnels back and digs under the moment of
tragedy.In thiswaythe greatoriginal-in his case Napoleon, in our case the historicalavant-garde-
may be questioned as such. In "'Well Grubbed, Old Mole': Marx, Hamlet,and the (Un)fixing of
Representation,"Peter Stallybrass,to whom I am indebted for this point, comments: "Marx thus
pursues a double strategyin the Eighteenth Brumaire. Through the firststrategy,
historyis represented
as a catastrophicdecline fromNapoleon to Louis Bonaparte. But in the second strategy, the effectof
this 'debased' repetition is to unsettle the status of the origin. Napoleon I can now only be read
back throughhis nephew: his ghost is awakened but as a caricature"(lecture at Cornell University,
March 1994). In thiswayif the evolutionistanalogy in Marx is beyond criticalsalvage,the rhetorical
model may not be. On repetition in Marx also see JeffreyMehlman, Revolutionand Repetition:
Marx/Hugo/Balzac(Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1977); and on rhetoricityin Marx see
Hayden White,Metahistory: TheHistoricalImagination in Nineteenth-Century
Europe(Baltimore:The Johns
Hopkins UniversityPress, 1973). On the posthistoricalsee Lutz Niethammer,Posthistoire: Has History
Cometo an End? trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Verso, 1992). In contemporaryNorth American
culturethereis a transvaluationof the patheticand the failed,but thatis anotherstory.
22. Both presentand past are projectionshere, but what exactlyis thispast, thislost object of the
melancholic critic? For Bfirgerit is not the historical avant-gardealone, despite the fact that he
castigatesit like a melancholic betrayedby his love object. Most criticsharbor some such lost ideal
againstwhich (post)modernismis secretlyjudged, and often,as per the formulaof melancholia,this
ideal is unconscious.

16 OCTOBER
can claim to be advanced as arttoday.23Second, it ignoresthat,ratherthan invert

the prewarcritique of the institutionof art, the neo-avant-gardehas workedto
extend it. It also ignoresthatin doing so the neo-avant-gardehas produced new
aestheticexperiences,cognitiveconnections,and politicalinterventions, and that
these openings may make up anothercriterion by which art can claim to be
advanced today.Bfirgerdoes not see these openings,again in part because he is
blind to the ambitiousartof his time.Here, then,I wantto exploresuch possibili-
ties, and to do so in the form of a hypothesis: Ratherthan cancel theprojectof the
historicalavant-garde,mightthe neo-avant-gardecomprehendit for thefirsttime?I say
"comprehend,"not "complete":theprojectoftheavant-garde is no moreconcluded
in its neo momentthan it is enacted in its historicalmoment.In art,too, creative
analysis is interminable.24
Immodestlyenough,I wantto do to BfirgerwhatMarxdid to Hegel: to right

his concept of the dialectic. Again, the aim of the avant-gardefor Bfirgeris to
destroythe institutionof autonomousartin order to reconnectartand life.Like
the structureof heroic past and failed present,however,this formulationonly
23. In other words,the recognitionof conventionality need not issue in the "simultaneity of the
radicallydisparate";on the contraryitcan prompta historicization of theradicallynecessary.See n. 24.
24. Some comparisonof Bfirgerand Buchloh mightbe usefulat thispoint. Buchloh also regards
avant-gardepracticeas punctualand final (e.g., in "MichaelAsherand the Conclusion of Modernist
Sculpture"he deems traditionalsculpture"definitely abolished by 1913" withthe Tatlinconstructions
and the Duchamp readymades [in Performance, Text(e)s& Documents,ed. Chantal Pontbriand
(Montreal: Parachute, 1981), p. 56]). Yet he drawsan opposite conclusion fromBfirger:the avant-
garde does not advance arbitrarinessbut countersit; ratherthan a relativismof means, it imposesa
necessityof analysis,the slackeningof which (as in the variousrappelsa l'ordre of the 1920s) threatens
to undo modernismas such (see "Figuresof Authority, Ciphers of Regression"[October 16 (Spring
1981)]). "The meaning of the break in the historyof art that the historicalavant-gardemovements
provoked,"Bfirgerwrites,"does not consist in the destructionof art as an institution,but in the
destructionof the possibilityof positingestheticnormsas valid ones" (87). "The conclusion,"Buchloh
respondsin his review,"that,because the one practicethatset out to dismantlethe institution of artin
bourgeoissocietyfailedto do so, all practicesbecome equallyvalid,is not logicallycompellingat all"
(p. 21). For Buchloh thisis "aestheticpassivism,"and it promotes"a vulgarizednotion of postmod-
ernism"even as itcondemnsit.
Biirgerand Buchloh also agree on the failureof the avant-garde, but not on its ramifications.
For Buchlohavant-gardepracticeaddressessocial contradictions thatit cannotresolve;in thisstructural
sense it can onlyfail. And yet if the work of art can registersuch contradictions,its veryfailureis
recouped. "The failureof that attempt,"Buchloh writesof the welded sculptureofJulio Gonzalez,
Picasso, and David Smith,which evokes the contradictionbetween collectiveindustrialproduction
and individualpreindustrialart,"inasmuchas it becomes evidentin the workitself,is then the work's
historic authenticity"("Michael Asher,"p. 59). Accordingto thissame dialectic of failure,
and aesthetic
Buchloh considers the practice of repetitionto be the authentic meaning of the neo-avant-garde
("PrimaryColors," p. 43). This dialectic is seductive,but it limitsthe possibilitiesof the neo-avant-
garde before the fact-a paradox, forme at least, in the workof thismostimportantadvocate of its
practices.Even ifBuchloh (or anyof us) gauges theselimitsprecisely, fromwhatpurchasedoes he (do
we) do so?

seems simple. For what is "art" here, and what is "life"?Alreadythe opposition
tends to cede to art the autonomythat is in question, and to position life at a
point beyond reach. In its veryformulation,then, the avant-gardeprojectis pre-
disposed to failure,with the sole exception of movementsset in the midst of
revolutions(this is another reason whyRussian Constructivism is so oftenprivi-
leged by artistsand criticson the left). To make mattersmore difficult,life is
conceived here paradoxically--notonly as remotebut also as immediate,as if it
were simplythere to rushin like so much air once the hermeticseal of convention
is broken.This Dadaist ideologyof experience,to whichBenjaminis also inclined,
leads Burger to read the avant-gardeas transgressionpure and simple.25More
specifically,it promptshim to see its primarydevice, the readymade,as a sheer
thing-of-the world,an account thatoccludes its use not onlyas an epistemological
provocationin the historicalavant-gardebut also as an institutionalprobe in the
neo-avant-garde.
In short,Buirgertakes the romanticrhetoricof the avant-garde,of rupture
and revolution,at its own word. In so doing, he missescrucial dimensionsof its
practice:forexample, its mimetic dimension,wherebythe avant-gardemimes the
degraded world of capitalistmodernityin order not to embrace it but to mock it
(e.g., Cologne Dada), and its utopiandimension,wherebythe avant-gardedoes
not pose whatcould be so much as what cannotbe-precisely, again, as a critique
of what is (e.g., de Stijl). Now to speak of the avant-gardein termsof rhetoricis
not to dismiss it as merelyrhetorical.Rather it is to situate its attacks as both
contextual and performative:contextual in the sense thatthe cabaret nihilismof
the Zurich branch of Dada is a criticalelaborationof the nihilismof WorldWar I,
or that the aesthetic anarchism of the Berlin branch of Dada is a critical
elaboration of the anarchismof a countrydefeatedmilitarilyand tornup politi-
cally; and performative in the sense that both these attacks on art are waged,
necessarily,in relationto it-to its languages,institutions, structuresof meaning,
expectation,and reception.It is in thisrhetorical relationthatavant-garderupture
and revolutionare located.
This formulationblunts the sharp critique of the avant-gardeprojectasso-
ciated withJiirgenHabermas, one that goes beyond Biirger.Not only did the
avant-garde fail, Habermas argues, it was always already false, "a nonsense
experiment.""Nothingremainsfroma desublimatedmeaning or a destructured
form;an emancipatoryeffectdoes not follow."26Some respondents to Burger
25. Adorno criticizesBenjamin on a related count in his famousresponse to "The Workof Artin
the Age of Mechanical Reproduction":"It would border on anarchismto revokethe reificationof a
greatworkof artin the spiritof immediateuse values" (letterof 16 March 1936, in Aesthetics
and Politics
[London: New Left Books, 1977], p. 123). For instances of the Dadaist ideology of immediacy,see
almostanyrelevanttextbyTristanTzara, RichardHiilsenbeck,etc.
26. Jilrgen Habermas, "Modernity-An Incomplete Project," in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on
Postmodern ed. Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983), p. 11. A complementarycritique argues
Culture,
thatthe avant-gardesucceeded-butonlyat the cost of us all; thatit penetratedother aspects of social

18 OCTOBER
push thiscritiquefurther:in itsattemptto negateart,it is argued,the avant-garde

preservesit, preservesthe categoryof art-as-such.Thus, ratherthan break with
the ideology of aesthetic autonomy,it is but "a reversalphenomenon on the
identicalideological level."27This critiqueis pointed,to be sure,but it is pointed
at the wrongtarget-that is, ifwe understandthe avant-gardeattackas rhetorical
in the immanentsense sketchedabove.28For the most acute avant-gardeartists
such as Duchamp, the aim is neitheran abstractnegation of art nor a romantic
reconciliationwithlifebut a perpetualtestingof the conventionsof both. Thus,
ratherthan false,circular,and otherwiseaffirmative, avant-gardepractice at its
best is contradictory, mobile, and dialectical,even rhizomatic.The same is true
of neo-avant-gardepractice at its best, even the earlyversionsof Rauschenberg
or Allan Kaprow. "Painting relates to both art and life," runs a famous
Rauschenberg motto. "Neither is made. (I tryto act in that gap between the
two.)"29Note that he says "gap": the work is to sustain a tension between art
and life,not somehow to reconnect the two. And even Kaprow,the neo-avant-
gardist most loyal to the line of reconnection, seeks not to undo the
"traditional identities" of art forms-this is a given for him-but to test the
"framesor formats"of aestheticexperience as definedat a particulartime and
place.30And it is thistestingof "framesor formats"thatdrivesthe neo-avant-garde
in its contemporaryphases.3'
At thispoint I need to take mythesisabout the avant-gardea step further,
one that may lead to another way (withBiUrger, beyond Bfirger)to narrateits
project.What exactlywas effectedby the signalacts of the historicalavant-garde,
as when Rodchenkopresentedpaintingas threepanels of primarycolors in 1921?
"I reduced paintingto itslogical conclusion,"the greatConstructivist remarkedin
1939, "and exhibitedthree canvases:red, blue and yellow.I affirmed:thisis the
end of painting.These are the primarycolors. Everyplane is a discreteplane and
life-but onlyto desublimatethem,to open themup to violentaggressions.For a contemporary ver-

sion of thisLuk?isciancritique (whichis sometimesdifficult to distinguishfromthe neoconservative
condemnationof avant-gardism toutcourt),see RussellA. Berman,ModernCultureand CriticalTheory
(Madison: University ofWisconsinPress,1989).
27. B. Lindner,"Aufhebungder Kunstin der Lebenspraxis?U1berdie Aktualititder Auseinander-
setzungmitden historischenAvantgardebewegungen," in Antworten, ed. Liidke,p. 83.
28. This rhetoricalunderstandingof the historicalavant-gardealso qualifiescriticismof it from
withinthe ranksof the neo-avant-garde, more on whichbelow.
29. Rauschenbergquoted inJohnCage, "On Rauschenberg,Artistand His Work"(1961), in Silence
(Middletown,Conn.: WesleyanUniversity Press,1969), p. 105.
30. Thus his developmentas suggestedby the titleof one of his books: Allan Kaprow,Assemblages,
Environments and Happenings(NewYork:HarryN. Abrams,1966).
31. The firstseriousintimationof postmodernism in visualartdrawson thisavant-gardeprojectto
challenge the modernismadvanced by Greenberg.In "Other Criteria"(1968/72) Leo Steinbergplays
on the classic definitionof modernist self-criticism:rather than define its medium in order to
"entrenchit more firmly in its area of competence" (Greenbergin "ModernistPainting"[1961/65]),
Steinberg calls on art to "redefinethe area of its competence by testingits limits" (OtherCriteria
[London: OxfordUniversity Press,1972], p. 77).

there will be no more representation."32Here Rodchenko declaresthe end of

painting,but what he demonstrates is different.It is the conventionality
of painting:
that it could be delimited to primarycolors on discretecanvases in his artistic-
political contextwith its specificpermissionsand pressures-this is the crucial
qualification.And nothing is demonstrated
explicit abouttheinstitutionofart.Obviously
convention and institutioncannot be separated, but theyare not identical. To
collapse convention intoinstitutionproduces a type of determinism;to read
institutionas convention produces a type of formalism.The institutionof art
enframes conventions,but itdoes not constitute them,not entirely. Howeverheuristic,
thisdifferencedoes help to distinguishthe emphases of historicaland neo-avant-
gardes: if the firstfocuses on the conventional,the second concentrateson the
institutional.33
A related argumentcan be advanced about Duchamp, as when he signed a
rotated urinal with a pseudonymin 1917. Rather than define the fundamental
properties of a specific medium from within as does Rodchenko, Duchamp
articulates"the enunciativeconditions"of the modern art workfromwithout.34
But the effectis similar:to revealthe conventionallimitsof artin a particulartime
and place-this again is the crucial qualification(obviouslythe contextsof New
YorkDada in 1917 and SovietConstructivism in 1921 are radicallydifferent).And
here,too,apartfromthelocal outrageprovokedbythevulgarobject,the institution
of art is not much defined. Indeed, the rejection of Fountainby the Society of
IndependentArtistsexposed itsdiscursiveparametersmore than the workperse.35
In any case, like the Rodchenko, the Duchamp is a declaration,a performative:
Rodchenko "affirms"; Duchamp, in the guise of R. Mutt,"chooses."Neitherwork
purports to be an analysis,letalone a deconstruction. The modernstatusofpainting
as made-for-exhibition is preservedbythe monochrome(it mayeven be perfected
there),and the museum-gallery nexus is leftintactbythe readymade.
Such indeed are the limitationsunderscoredfifty years later by artistslike
32. Alexander Rodchenko, "Working with Mayakowsky,"in FromPainting to Design: Russian

ConstructivistArtoftheTwenties (Cologne: Galerie Gmurzyska,1981), p. 191. How are we to read the
retrospectiveaspect of this statement?How retroactiveis it? For a differentaccount, see Buchloh,
"PrimaryColors,"pp. 43-45.
33. Myaccount of thisdifferenceis informedbyFrazerWard,"InstitutionalCritique and Publicity"
(manuscript).
34. See Thierryde Duve's "Echoes of the Readymade:Critiqueof Pure Modernism"in thisissue.
35. But then is there a perse here apart fromthis rejection?It mayalso be that the policyof the
exhibition-to include all comers in alphabetical order-was more transgressivethan Fountain
(despite the factthat its rejectionbelied thispolicy). In any case, Fountainposes the question of the
nonexhibited:not shown,then lost, later replicated,onlyto enter the discourse of modern art retroac-
tivelyas a foundationalact. (Monument totheThirdInternational is anotherimportantinstanceof a work
turnedinto a fetishthatcoversits own absence, a processthatI attemptto theorizebelow in termsof
trauma.) Of course the nonexhibitedis its own avant-gardeparadigm,indeed its own tradition,from
the Salon des refusesand the Secession movementsof the nineteenthcenturyto canceled exhibitions
in our own time,mostsignificantly thatof Hans Haacke at the Guggenheimin 1971-an example that
again maypointto the heuristicdifferencebetweenconvention-critique and institution-critique.

20 OCTOBER
Marcel Broodthaers,Daniel Buren, Michael Asher,and Hans Haacke, who were

concerned to elaborate these same paradigmsin order to investigatethisexhibi-
tion statusand thatinstitutionalnexus more systematically.36 To mymind thisis
the essentialrelationbetweenthe mostsignificant historicaland neo-avant-garde
practices.First,artistslike Flavin,Andre,Judd,and Morrisin the early1960s,and
then artistslike Broodthaers,Buren,Asher,and Haacke in the late 1960s,develop
the critique of the conventions of the traditional mediums, as performedby
Dada, Constructivism, into an investigationof
and other historicalavant-gardes,
the institutionof art, its perceptual and cognitive, structuraland discursive
parameters. This is to advance threeclaims: (1) that the institutionof art is grasped
as such not with the historicalavant-gardebut with the neo-avant-garde;(2) that the
neo-avant-gardeat its bestaddressesthisinstitutionwitha creativeanalysis at oncespecific
(not a nihilisticattackat onceabstractand anarchistic,as oftenwiththe
and deconstructive
historicalavant-garde); and (3) that, ratherthan cancel the historicalavant-garde,the
neo-avant-gardeenacts itsprojectfor thefirsttime-a firsttimethat,again, is theoretically
It is thusthatthe Biurgerdialecticof the avant-gardemightbe righted.
endless.
Of course mythesishas its own problems.First,thereis the historicalirony

that the institution of art, the museum above all else, has changed beyond
recognition,a development that demands the continual transformationof its
avant-gardecritique as well. A reconnection of art and life has occurred, but
under the termsof the cultureindustry, aspectsof whichare
not the avant-garde,
appropriated by spectacular culture in part through its neo repetitions.This
much is due the devil,but onlythismuch.37Ratherthan renderthe avant-garde
36. The Musied'artmoderne of MarcelBroodthaersis the masterpieceof thisanalysis,but let me offer

twolaterexamples.In 1979 Michael Asherconceiveda projectfora group showat the ArtInstituteof
Chicago in which a statue of George Washington (a copy of the celebrated one byJean Antoine
Houdon) was movedfromthe centralfrontof the museum,whereit performeda commemorative and
decorativerole,to an eighteenth-century period gallery,whereits aestheticand art-historicalfunctions
wereforegrounded.These functionsof the statuebecame clear in the simpleact ofitsdisplacement-as
did the factthatin neitherpositionwas the statueallowedto become historical.Here Asherelaborates
the readymadeparadigmintoa situationalaesthetics("In thiswork,"Ashercommentsin Writings, "I was
the authorof the situation, not of the elements"[p. 209]) in whichcertainlimitationsof the artmuse-
um as a place of historicalmemoryare underscored.
Myotherexampleis also an elaborationof the readymadeparadigm,butone thattracesextrinsic
MetroMobiltan
affiliations. (1985) by Hans Haacke consistsof a miniaturefacade of the Metropolitan
Museum repletewithitsnoble mottoabout the disinterested natureof art.It is also decoratedwiththe
usual banners,one of whichannounces a showof ancienttreasuresfromNigeria.The otherbanners,
however,are not usual: theyare quotations frompolicystatementsof Mobil, sponsorof the Nigeria
show,about its involvementwiththe apartheidregimeof South Africa.In thisworkthe double-talk,
the co-duplicity,of corporation and museum is made patent,again throughthe simple use of the
applied readymade.
37. Bfirgeracknowledgesthis "falseeliminationof the distance between art and life"and draws
fromit two conclusions: "the contradictorinessof the avant-gardisteundertaking" (50) and the

MichaelAsher. at the
Installation
ArtInstitute
ofChicago.1979.
(Photo:RustyCulp.)
i
ili!iri-i:i
i~i~iiiliiiiii~
-:iiiL-iii:::
:?I::?:
: :il'i-;:iiiii
i
i
'i i:_iiii
:-:
:::::
-:::::-::
:l_,:: : , -iii'il''
i:ii i!iii
:i:-: :?': iiiiii~:'`
i
ii::
ii)
-::i -:
!ii;ili;:i;:iaai~i
iii
,::-:::?ii~ i!iiic` -:'liiilai-iiiiii-ii~~i
ii~~;iiiiiiii"'ii.il
i.........
~~-:--iiiiii:_:::::::-::::::::: --:':-
. : ?i_
. _:: ::::-i::::i
_:::::::::
i!i::i:- i.ii-ri:
iii-:-iiiii-
'-:
'?::li:a~i-liii'iiiiiii~iii
iai~iiiiii~iii~i~i:i
-ii~iii-iiliili:lo:.
): ,!,,iii'iiiii~i,
;: :ii
........................
.
-i-j:---:: ?:::-~~i)~i
: i:?
:::-:iiii~ii-iii
i : 'i:i~i:i
(Iii
:_l::iii
l ::-:::: ::-::-::--::ii-i-:::-:_I:,: : 'iiii:;i:":i-i:]i~
: :i~i-::i
::"-:
::"i- : i;i:ii
:-i:iiii~r~ii ....i~:~
Hans Haacke.MetroMobiltan.1985.

22 OCTOBER
null and void, these developmentshave produced new spaces of criticalplayand

promptednew modes of institutionalanalysis.And this reworkingof the avant-
garde, in terms of aesthetic forms,cultural-political strategies, and social
positionings,has provedto be the mostvitalprojectin artand criticismover the
lastthreedecades at least.
However,thisonlypoints to one historicalproblem,and thereare theoreti-
cal difficultieswith my thesis as well. Again, terms like historical and neo-
avant-gardemaybe at once too generaland too exclusiveto use effectively today.I
noted some drawbacksof the firstterm;if the second is to be retainedat all, at
least twomomentsin the initialneo-avant-garde alone mustbe distinguished:the
firstmoment representedhere by Rauschenbergand Kaprow in the 1950s,the
second momentby Buren and Asher in the 1960s.38As the firstneo-avantgarde
recoversthe historicalavant-garde,Dada in particular,it does so oftenliterally,
througha reprise of its basic devices, the effectof which is lessto transform
the
theavant-gardeintoan institution.
institutionofart than to transform This is one ruse of
historyto grantBfirger,but ratherthan dismissit as farcewe mightattemptto
understandit-here in analogywiththe Freudianmodel of repressionand repeti-
tion.39On this model if the historicalavant-gardewas repressed it
institutionally,
in the firstneo-avant-garde,
was repeated ratherthan,in the Freudiandistinction,
its contradictionsworkedthrough.If this analogy between repression
recollected,
and reception holds, then in its firstrepetition the avant-gardewas made to
appear historicalbefore i.e., beforeits aesthetic-
it was allowed to become effective,
necessityof some autonomyforart (54). Buchloh is more dismissive."The primaryfunctionof the

neo-avant-garde," he writesin "PrimaryColors,"was not to examine thishistoricalbody of aesthetic
knowledge[i.e., the paradigmof the monochrome],but to provide models of culturalidentityand
legitimationfor the reconstructed(or newlyconstituted)liberal bourgeoisaudience of the postwar
period. This audience soughta reconstructionof the avant-gardethatwould fulfillits own needs, and
the demystification of aestheticpracticewas certainlynot among those needs. Neitherwas the integra-
tion of artinto social practice,but ratherthe opposite:the associationof artwithspectacle.It is in the
spectacle thatthe neo-avant-gardefindsits place as the providerof a mythicalsemblanceof radicality,
and it is in the spectacle thatit can imbue the repetitionof its obsolete moderniststrategieswiththe
appearance of credibility"(p. 51). I do not question the restrictedtruthof this specificstatement
(made in relationto Yves Klein) so much as its confidentfinalityas a general pronouncementupon
the neo-avant-garde.
38. Obviouslythissinglingout is artificial:Rauschenbergcannot be detached froma specificCage
milieu any more than Kaprowcan be dissociatedfroma general Fluxus ethos,and Buren and Asher
emerge in spaces vectoredbyverydifferent artisticand theoreticalforces.Other historicalexamples
would also generateothertheoreticalemphases.
39. Again Buchloh has led the way:"I wantto argue,againstBiirger,thatthe positingof a moment
of historicaloriginality in the relationshipbetweenthe historicalavant-gardeand the neo-avant-garde
does not allow for an adequate understandingof the complexityof that relationship,for we are
confrontedhere withpracticesof repetitionthatcannotbe discussedin termsof influences,imitation,
and authenticityalone. A model of repetition that mightbetterdescribe this relationshipis the
Freudianconcept of repetitionthatoriginatesin repressionand disavowal"("PrimaryColors,"p. 43).
It is thissuggestionthatI take up below. In "Painting:the Task of Mourning,"Yve-AlainBois applies
the Freudian concept of working-throughto the end of painting (in Endgame,ed. David Jocelit
[Boston:ICA, 1986]).

political ramifications could be sorted out, let alone elaborated.40 On the

Freudiananalogythisis repetition,indeed reception,as resistance. And it need not
be reactionary;one purpose of the Freudiananalogyis to suggestthatresistanceis
unknowing, that it is a processof un-knowing.Thus, for example, as early as
Rauschenbergand Johns there is a Duchamp genre in the making,whichis not
onlyat odds withhis practicebut paradoxicallyin advance of its recognition,and
maybein resistanceto it as well-to its finalwork(the posthumousEtantsdonnes),
to some of itsprinciples,to manyof itsramifications.
The importantpoint is that the becoming-institutional of the avant-garde
does not doom all subsequentart to courtbuffoonery. It also promptsin a second
neo-avant-garde a critiqueof thisprocessof acculturationand/or accommodation.
Such is the principal subject of an artistlike Broodthaerswhose extraordinary
tableaux evoke cultural reificationonly to transformit into a critical poetic.
Broodthaersoftenuses shelled thingslike eggs and musselsto renderthisharden-
ing at once literal and allegorical, in a word, reflexive-as if the best defense
against reification were a preemptive embrace, a dire expose, of it.41More
generally,this becoming-institutional promptsin the second neo-avant-gardea
creativeanalysisof the limitationsof both historicaland firstneo-avant-gardes.
Thus, to pursue one aspectof the receptionof Duchamp, in severaltextssince the
late 1960s Buren has questioned the Dadaist ideology of immediacy (or what
Buchloh calls the "petit-bourgeoisanarchistradicality"of Duchampian acts); and
in manyworksover the same period he has combined the monochromeand the
readymadeinto a device, his now-signaturestripes,to explore what these para-
digmsexposed, onlyin partto occlude: "the parametersof artisticproductionand
reception."42Such elaboration is a collective labor that now cuts across entire
generationsof neo-avant-gardeartists-to develop paradigmslike the readymade
froman object thatpurportsto be transgressive in its veryfacticity(as in its first
neo repetition),to a device that addresses the serialityof objects and images in
advanced capitalism(as in Minimalistand Pop art), to a propositionthatexplores
the linguisticdimensionof the workof art (as in Conceptual art), to a markerof
40. This is not the fateof the historicalavant-gardealone; Buchloh characterizesthe receptionof
Asherin thiswaytoo. See his Editor'sNote in Michael Asher,Writings 1973-1983 on Works1969-1979
(Halifax:The Pressof the Nova Scotia College ofArtand Design, 1983), vii.
41. In thisstrategy, whichis as old as modernism,an individuallyassumed reificationis taken up,
homeopathicallyor apotropaically,againsta sociallyenforcedreification.In paired poems in Pense-Bite
(1963-64), "La Moule" (The Mussel) and "La M6duse" (The Jellyfish),Broodthaers gives us two
complementarytotemsof this tactic.The firstreads: "This cleverthinghas avoided society'smold./
She's cast herselfin her veryown./ Other look-alikessharewithher the anti-sea./She's perfect."And
the second in part: "It's perfect/No mold/ Nothingbut body" (translatedby Paul Schmidtin October
42 [Fall 1987]). Also see Buchloh, "Marcel Broodthaers:Allegories of the Avant-Garde,"where he
notes thatBroodthaerswas influencedby Lucien Goldmann,who in turnstudiedwithGeorg Lukdics,
the greattheoristof reification.Broodthaerswas also influencedalong these lines byManzoni.
42. Buchloh, "Conceptual Art 1962-1969," in October 55 (Winter 1990), pp. 137-38. As Buchloh
remarks,thiscritiqueis directedless at Duchamp than at his neo progeny.

24 OCTOBER
........
....
........
.. ....
MarcelBroodthaers.
WhiteCabinet
and WhiteTable. 1965.

Daniel Buren.Exhibition,RueJacob,
Paris. 1968.
(Photo:BernardBoyer.)
physicalpresence (as in site-specificartof the 1970s),to a formof criticalmimicry

of variousdiscourses(as allegoricalartof the 1980s),and, finally,
in to a probe of
sexual, ethnic,and social differences today (as in the work of such diverse artists
as SherrieLevine,David Hammons, and Robert Gober). In this way the so-called
failureof both historicaland firstneo-avant-gardes to destroythe institutionof art
has enabledthe deconstructivetestingof thisinstitutionby the second neo-avant-
garde-a testing that, again, is now extended to differentinstitutionsand
discoursesin the ambitiousartof the present.
But lest I renderthissecond neo-avant-gardeheroic,it is importantto note
that critiquecan also be turnedon it. If the historicaland the firstneo-avant-
its
gardes oftensufferedfromanarchistictendencies,the second neo-avant-garde
sometimessuccumbsto apocalypticimpulses."Perhapsthe onlythingone can do
afterhavingseen a canvas like ours,"Buren saysin one such momentin February
1968, "is total revolution."43This is the language of 1968, and artistslike Buren
oftenuse it: his workproceeds from"the extinction"of the studio,he writesin
"The Functionof the Studio" (1971); it is pledged not merelyto "contradict"the
game of art but to "abolish"its rules altogether.44 In thisrhetoric,whichis more
43. Buren quoted in Lucy Lippard,Six Years:theDematerialization oftheArtObject from1966 to 1972

(NewYork:Praeger,1973), p. 41.
44. Daniel Buren,"The Functionof the Studio,"October trans.
10 (Fall 1979), p. 58; and Reboundings,
PhilippeHunt (Brussels:Daled & Gevaert,1977), p. 73. This languagegovernsinfluentialtheoryof the
time too, as in thistrumpingof ideology-critiqueby Barthes,also in 1971: "It is no longer the myths
which need to be unmasked (the doxa now takes care of that), it is the sign itselfwhich must be

26 OCTOBER
Coverdesign
SilviaKolbowski. forArts
Magazine.1990.
Ii.,
Situationistthan situated,thereare strongechoes of the oracular,oftenmachistic

pronouncementsof the high modernists.Our presentis bereftof this sense of
imminentrevolution;it is also chastened by feministcritiques of revolutionary
language as well as byothersuspicionsabout the exclusivity notjust of artinstitu-
tionsbut of criticaldiscoursesas well.As a resultcontemporary artistsconcerned
to develop the institutionalanalysisof the second neo-avant-gardehave moved
awayfromgrand oppositions to subtle displacements
(I thinkof artistsfromLouise
Lawlerand Silvia Kolbowskito ChristopherWilliamsand Andrea Fraser) and/or
strategiccollaborationswith differentgroups (Fred Wilson and Mark Dion are
representative here). This is one way that the critique of the avant-garde
continues,indeed one waythatthe avant-gardecontinues.Far froma recipe for
hermeticismor formalism, thisis in facta formulaof practice.It is also a precon-
dition of any contemporary understanding of the differentphases of the
avant-garde.
shaken" ("Change the Object Itself,"in Image-Music-Text, trans.Stephen Heath [New York:Hill and
Wang,1977], p. 167). How are we to relatesuch institution-critiquein artand theoryto otherpolitical
formsof interventionand occupation around 1968? For me thisquestion is riddled by a particular
photo-documentof an April 1968 project by Buren, which consistedof 200 striped panels posted
around Paris-to testthe legibilityof paintingbeyond the limitsof the museum,among other pur-
poses. In thisone instancethe panel is posted overvariousads on a brightorange billboard,but it also
obscureswhatappears to be a handwrittenannouncementof a studentmeetingat Vincennes (again
thisis April1968). Was the placementinadvertent? How are we to mediatetheseimage-events?

f
Rit
i-: co
AYIGUwo
:I'ii3~i'il-
:iii-:ii~i~ii~i
S10
T""R
F
TE?:::_:::::::::::::::
: ct?:
it
ILA
LouiseLawler.Untitled(Rooster).
1993.
::--:--
-:
.....--._
----.-.
::i::-i:-----:-
--:--:::::-:
::-._-
--:::::-:::::::::::::::i-
: -:::::::_::-:-:
: :: ::::-.-:
-::--:.'
::::::-i:i~
?-::::::::::::
.:::::-
:::::: :- :-::
: :: ::...--. ~~~sii:liq:iiiii-::?:
:--::::?::::-:::::.i
i;
:::::::::::;:
::::iii:'
-:i':-i:::'-i?
:.:::l?i:::-j
-ilili:ii':-::':';
::i:i:r?:::: :-:::-::::::
:_::::-:;-:.
:::
;iii-::ii-i-i:
i:i-ii'ii'ijiiiiFl??::i:?
:I:iiiiiiiii::-iii:?i?
iiii::
_i"-
i:i::
:-i:iiifi:'i
':::::'::
'::''
::i:~~::::_
iiiii
:ii:
:i :i:iiiiiil':i
i:i:ii:ii::iiii?iii:::i:'i:
i:..
iii:ii
:-ii:i
~:ili-'-i'-:-'i':
ii::i::-:_::::
' :_::::::
a-ii.i:a-s
:
i.b-iii.i:ii'
-:?::::
:::::-::i-;
:?:??::?:;?:?:
:::-:::
::::: 6--:_:i-i
:-:l:l:i---"::j:::::i._;il;
iii-iiii:ii:
:_i_:iiii
-i:i:~:-:::-:-:::::i:i:i-:ii-:ii:i?iii
i:i.i:ii_:,_,,-,,,
-:.i:i:i:i?iri:i::-:_::::::----:li._::
i:-i;ii:ii:
-_il--iiiniii:?
:ii:i:iii-;
:.: _i:i:
-?-
i:---
: : i:_::i::
i: :::::::
iiii:i:i:iii
ilili:
iiiiiii'iiiii
":??":i;? ~?~ -?~_~;-iii ?I
ii:I:ii:i:-:i::::: ::-.:-::::-::.
-::::
i:i:si::~i:il-i:i:i:;:i-i:i-
--::i-:-:i-
-: iiii ii:ii:~ ~.iii:i:i::iii ii:ii
-:::::?:;:::-?:--'.'
:::c-i~i?iliii: ::::::
::,i
--?-
-i-i:i:i:il;i:i---:;fi;i-i'_j:-:;i;E'-'
:~~:i?':::I':':"'::iiRi-ii~ii~
iii
ii:i:i:i.-
: __:-:i:;i
i?i.i
j:i
i:iji-iyil;::_:
--:~i-_:_
i:
:i:~i:~:.4::s:a,:i:i::i?--;:1:l
ii:::::::::;:
::?':'i-iiii~:i-ii-i-Si:~i:i':-:--i:--:-ii Wi-6-?L
':ii~i3?i-kii~ii~i'~::i~~i:i;-4ij~-Eil
ii-:?-;:;::'::?:r:
:'::":;
:i:i:i?i:ii:_:i::::::
:i::i:-::::-:
Robert
Gober.
Untitled.1993-94.

i:i:::::i:i:i:i::i:i:::i:i:i:-
i:,:i
:: aitll?:li8ii- ii:iiiiiijii~ciiiaiiiiiiii:~::~?::
Bi~??~-"--"'.ii:::i;:ii?iii i:iiiii:il::i:i:i
ii:`i
i:'i:: MarkDion.Departmentof Marine
iiziiiiiiiiiiiiii:iiiiiiiiiiiiii
!ijijijiiiiijii"ii~iiiiiiiiiiii-'"l'-"
"''":::i:i
i-i'i'8
iii-:
-i:i:
I':j'i::Bi
i::
::`:':':':::":
':':-:::':':':':
:':':'::'"
':':-:':'
::::::::':::::'::::
::::::::: ::':'1.:'"''-':'''
::':'::':' -i'i."liiji:::alil-i
:':""'i:i:_ii.i-i:.. i:iiiiijiiiiliii:iii
?j:ij:?:iii
-i-iii:i
iiicii;iii-iiiici::-:
::::::i:?iii:i
_-:_:.i:i:i:i::i:
iii-i-iz:k:i:i?i:-?:i:i
.iisiii-i:iiuiaii~iiiiiliiiiii
i:i:i:i:I:-::i: ~~:iiii-i.:ii.~.~'ii.?ii::I-''.~''-'
::i-:i:,::i:r::-:-:_ii::,:-
:::,:::.:?:-:::::
':iiii~ii~i;i~i:::~-i-lii:i:E:;-~ii:-i
i-i
i-ili-i:i-:-i-
: !:ii
"::~":-':':'
ri:i
..i-i iia:i:i?_ii:;
:ii:::
?ii:i:
il?
.i.~:..'::~i':;'-''':'
:-:::- ?~ii-i.?i.l
':':"-'-?-'"':~--:~:'-i~:-:-::::-s
,_::,,::,::::::
:::::-I:::':::
''':'-'?''':'
:-i?---:--:I:-:.??~_i:~~-~;i~-il?:~l~"if
::::::::::::-:-::::::n::r::: ?;i:i:~l
;:"::'`~":"'-":-'":~:j::::~:~.,-::,::,-:-r?:~:~;~iiiB:~:~:::::::-
AnimalIdentificationof the Cityof
::"'::':::-::
*:--
--~--~:'"'i:snaiii-gi
:'-:'::':':':';';
-i--:ii-
:.-:::::::::::: ,:,.
ii:i:;';'::: : _iii,~~
: :i:-::::-:
-:: i:ii_:-:ii
i :: :::: : : i :: iii:i:'i ::--ir-~-1,
:i:::::i-::-:1 ;;?;?-iiiili-i-;i::
:::::i?i:
: :i?:::'-:: : : ?;;??
?::i::-:
:::-:::: ::::-:i:-li :::::::::
::?::?::::?:::::::
::::::::::
i:i:::i?
;'l''-:i
ii:-: NewYork(ChinatownDivision).
::::: :: i:
::; ::- :- .: ?;:?.I :i::::::?
air::
iiii iii::i:ii:?
j ::-::::-_::-::_--
- ::::::.' : ::,.::, :: ::i
: ? :: i:-:- -:-::'
-?:-?:?
:I::?:::
::::::::::-:::::-::::
i:i:-:i''
-:''':''''':-:::~'-::
:,::,:.::" -i~ ::ii.ii:?
iii
-i:i
-::.:
i:i:::?i
::i:iiiiiiiii:'ii:
ijiji ,,:
;i:i
i-i-i
iiii:iii:ii::-
:::-:::?
:--:: :::::_:
:::?_.: :
--_::::_:
_:::::i::.:-::-::::.
:: i.:ii,:ii-',i-'-iiiii:-ii-:;:ii::--,:
?::_l::iiii::iii:-:iii---:-i-i-__ii-::
':::'::-:~.i:i;iii :::::::-::::::
?::--::-.:-ii:::i:i-Ii_-:::iiii
::::
:::.:.
?-I?-:
f-i:::::: : ?:
i~'u~;ii:,:i~~~.~
::::?:::-:-
::::::~:~
I'~-~il-?ii::i-i-: :i:::i:-:i:-:
-:is:i--:-:-:i-:::::::-:::::
,::::;: :::
::v,
;:,,,,,,
': :::::
::::::::"'-':'':':::
:-':--::-
:.:.
:.::
::::::':::-":-:'"-:.:.-::
:::::---:~::?:::-;:-::~:::::::i::
???'?`?'-?-i::-?::-:i:: `;:i9i-r:i:i~i-ii'li:iii
i:i:'::-il-ii:
I:~i:~i--iiiii:iii
??iiii:-ii-:::i:-i-i:-iini'&_i~-:-::--:i:i:-i--_::~i5iiiiii:i'ii:::i:
ii.iiii:--:i:-:--
-:j ~ii~-i-i:-:~ii:i-i.i-ii--ii-i:ij::l:i::'
-i:': 1992.
-i-'_'-'-:i:l
:::::::::.:::::::
--I
::::::-::?-.-
:::::::-_-:---:I:::_:--:i:i
ii-:::::::::::::::::
:::-:
: i:i::b? -:::?:::::::::::::;:_:i_:--:-:-:;i:-:
..i-:'
--;:i_::::-:.:::::
?::: :,::,::::i:-r::::i::. i-i--r:i-i;-i-i-i:i:i-i:i-i:i-:i:-::::-:
:::::::::::::::::_i::_:::::. :;":-::::-:::
::::::::-::.
:::::-::--
-i-::-:-:i:i:::.:::::::::i:?:-:-:i---::_
:_:::
:? - :- ::
i':':
Biii
iiiiii::i~i:~:: :_____.-?
:-,.
-I: :::, -I-?:i
::: :::1::::::.?-
:i-i--:::i:l::;:::i-_:::
-;'?':
:,::
' ?:__:_ :::
: ::::::
,::: ,::::
:::,:
:.:i:i-: --_:-::
_.
:::-::
~i::;:
:::-
:::::::::
-:i:-.-::
:::
`--:i:::::
:::::?:?:
:.::
:-::-::
::i:::::li
ii-i?i::e
-,-::,:_
ii;i:ii?i,.i~.,i i:i ::::::
::::::::::::i::
.. -:ii- : ...;-j
:....;.:,.,..:,:,.--:
-:,:-:rli:i::
::~:~?ii.ii:i:::::::::::
:
?:::a:;i-~::::::::-":
:::::::
0""
AWA
--Vwa l
................
Miningthe Museum.
FredWilson.
MuseumofArt.1992.
Baltimore

Perhaps now we can return to the initial question: how to narrate this
revised relation between historicaland neo-avant-gardes?The premise that an
understandingof an artcan onlybe as developed as the artmustbe retained,but
again not along historicistlines, whetherin analogy to anatomical development
(as momentarilyin Marx) or in analogy to rhetoricaldevelopment, of origin
followed by repetition,of tragedyfollowedby farce (as persistentlyin Biirger).
Differentmodels of causality,temporality,and narrativity are required; far too
much is at stakein practice,pedagogy,and politicssimplyto do withoutthem.
In order to advance a model of myown,I need to foregroundan assumption
alreadyat workin this text: that history,in particularmodernisthistory,is often
conceived,secretlyor otherwise,on the model of the individualsubject,indeed as
a subject.This is plain when a given historyis narratedin termsof evolution or
progression,as often in the late nineteenthcentury,or converselyin termsof
devolutionor regression,as oftenin the earlytwentiethcentury(the last trope is
pervasivein moderniststudiesfromGeorgLukacs to the present).But thismodeling
of historycontinuesin contemporarycriticismeven when it assumesthe death of
the subject,foroftenthen the subject onlyreturnsat the level of ideology (e.g.,
the Nazi subject), the nation (now imaginedas a psychicentityas oftenas a body
politic), and so on. As is clear here frommytreatmentof the art institutionas a
subject of resistance,I am as guiltyof thisvice as the next critic,but ratherthan
give it up I wantto make it a virtue.For ifthisanalogyto the individualsubjectis
all but structuralto historicalstudies,whynot applythe mostsophisticatedmodel
of the subject,the psychoanalytical one, and do so in a manifestway?45
In his best moments Freud limns the psychictemporalityof the subject,
which is quite differentfrom the biological temporality of the body, the
epistemologicalanalogythatinformsBfirgervia Marx. (I say"in his bestmoments,"
forjust as Marx often escapes the propping of the historicalon the biological,
Freud oftensuccumbsto thismodeling.)46For Freud, especiallyas read through
45. This continuation of the subject by other means was pointed out to me by Mark Seltzer; I
practiceit mostegregiouslyin "Postmodernismin Parallax" (October 63 [Spring 1993]). In partit stems
fromthe imperativeto thinkthe atavisticaspects of contemporarypoliticsin a psychoanalytic frame,
especiallynationalismsand neo-Fascisms(the workof Mikkel Borch-Jakobsen on identificationand
SlavojZiiek on fantasyis importanthere). It is also drivenbya strongsense of a traumaticcore within
historicalexperience, of which the Holocaust is often taken as a kind of paradigm. Obviouslythis
application has its dangers,one of which is an open invitationto immediateidentificationwiththe
traumatizedvictim-a point at which the general cultureand the academic vanguardnow converge
(sometimes the model of both seems to be Oprah,and the motto of both "EnjoyYour Symptom!").
Today the activeareas of humanitiesare reconfigurednot as culturalstudies(as manyhoped and some
feared) but as traumastudies.Repressed byvarious poststructuralisms, the real has returned-but not
just anyreal,onlythe traumaticreal.
46. Despite the efforts
of Lacan to save Freud fromhis "pretheoretical"heritage,thisproppingof the
historical on the biological may be fundamental to Freud in a way that it is not to Marx-in his
Lamarckianrecourseto phylogenetic to psychosexualstages,to developmentallogicsin general.
fantasies,

30 OCTOBER
Lacan, subjectivityis not set once and forall; it is structuredas a relayof antici-
pations and reconstructionsof traumaticevents."It alwaystakes two traumasto
make a trauma,"commentsJean Laplanche,who has done the mostto clarifythe
differenttemporalmodels in Freudian thought.47One event is only registered
throughanotherthatrecodes it;we come to be who we are onlyin deferred action,
in Nachtriiglichkeit.It is thisanalogy thatI wantto propose formoderniststudies
at the end of the century:I believehistoricaland neo-avant-gardes are constituted
in a similarway,as a continual process of protensionand retension,a complex
relayof reconstructedpast and anticipatedfuture-in short,in a deferredaction
that throwsover any simple scheme of beforeand after,cause and effect,origin
and repetition.48
On this analogy the avant-gardeworkis neverhistorically effectiveor fully
significantin its initial moments. It cannotbe because it is a hole in the
traumatic:
symbolic order of its time thatis not preparedforit, that cannot receiveit,at least
not immediately, at least notwithoutstructuralchange. (This is the otherscene of
art that criticsand historiansneed to register:not onlysymbolicdisconnections
butfailurestosignify.)49 This traumapoints to anotherfunctionin the repetition
of avant-gardeevents like the readymade and the monochrome: not only to
deepen such holes but to bind themas well.And thisfunctionpoints to another
problem:how are we to distinguishthe twooperations?Can theyeverbe so sepa-
rated?50Of course thereare relatedrepetitionsin the Freudianmodel thatI have
47. Jean Laplanche, NewFoundations ofPsychanalysis,trans.David Macey (London: Basic Blackwell,

1989), p. 88. Also see his Seduction,Translation,theDrives,ed. John Fletcher and Martin Stanton
(London: InstituteforContemporaryArt,1992). Though influencedbyLacan, Laplanche takesa very
differentviewof the role of "thevitalorder"in Freud.
48. Above I said "comprehended"ratherthan "constituted," but the two processesare imbricated,
especiallyso in myanalogy if the avant-gardeartist-critic assumes the position of both analystand
analysand.There are meritsto thismodel thatwillrequireanotheressayto argue through,but there
are problemsas well (in addition to the veryproblemof analogy). How mightthismodel of deferral
negotiateother kindsof delaysand differences, across other culturalspace-times?How restrictedare
itstemporalizations?
49. Here too old semioticand social-historicalapproaches seem to converge,in part around the
psychoanalytic. T. J. Clark intimatedthis over twentyyearsago in his introduction("On the Social
Historyof Art")to ImageofthePeople(London: Thames & Hudson, 1973): "As forthe public,we could
make an analogywithFreudian theory.... The public,like the unconscious,is presentonlywhereit
ceases; yetit determinesthe structureof privatediscourse; it is keyto what cannot be said, and no
subjectis more important"(p. 12).
50. "The crucial point here,"ZiWekwritesin his Lacanian gloss on thisquestion, "is the changed
statusof an event:whenit eruptsforthe firsttimeit is experiencedas a contingenttrauma,as an intru-
sion of a certainnonsymbolizedReal; onlythroughrepetitionis thiseventrecognizedin its symbolic
necessity--itfindsits place in the symbolicnetwork;it is realizedin the symbolicorder" (The Sublime
ObjectofIdeology[London: Verso, 1989], p. 61). In thisformulationrepetitionappears curative,even
redemptive, whichis unusualforZiiek,who privilegesthe intransigence of the traumaticreal.Thus for-
mulatedin relationto the avant-garde,the discourseof traumais no greatimprovement over the old
discourseofshock,whererepetitionis littlemorethanabsorption,as itis conceivedherebyBfirger:"As
a resultofrepetition,itchangesfundamentally: thereis such a thingas expectedshock.... The shockis
'consumed"'"(81).The differencebetween shock and trauma is importantto retain; it maypoint to
anotherheuristicdistinctionbetweenmodernistand postmodernist discoursesmoregenerally.

smuggledin here: some in which the traumais acted out hysterically, as the first
neo-avant-garde acts out the anarchistic attacks of the historical avant-garde;
others in which the trauma is worked through laboriously,as later neo-avant-
gardes develop these attacks,at once abstractand literal,into performancesthat
are immanentand allegorical.It is in all these waysthatthe neo-avant-gardeacts
on the historicalavant-gardeas much as it is acted on byit; thatit is less neothan
that the avant-gardeproject in general develops in deferredaction.
nachtriiglich;
Once repressedin part,the avant-gardedid return,and it continuesto return,but
alwaysfromthefuture:such is itsparadoxicaltemporality.51So, again,what'sneo about
the neo-avant-garde?
I wantto returnverybrieflyto the strategyof the returnwithwhichI began.

Whetherthe recoveriesin art of the 1960s are as radical as those of Marx,Freud,
or Nietzschein theoryof the time cannot be decided. What is certain,however,is
that these returnsare as fundamentalto postmodernistart as theyare to post-
structuralisttheory:both make the breaks that theydo throughsuch recoveries.
But then these breaksare not complete,and we have to qualifyour definitionof
epistemological rupture.Here too the notion of deferredaction is useful,for
ratherthanbreakwiththefundamental practicesand discourses ofmodernity,thesignal
and
practices discourses advance
ofpostmodernity in a nachtrdiglichrelationtothem.52
And there is more, for,beyond thisgeneral nachtrdglich relation,both post-
modernistart and poststructuralisttheory have developed the specificquestions
that deferredaction poses: questions of repetition,difference,and deferral;of
causality,temporality,and narrativity.Apart from the topics of repetition and
returnremarkedhere, the neo-avant-gardeis obsessed withthe twinproblemsof
temporality and textuality--not
onlythe introductionof timeand textintospatial
51. See Ziiek, SublimeObject,p. 55. Duchamp criticismhardlyneeds another magical key to the
work,but it is extraordinaryhow recursionand retroactivity are builtinto his art-as ifDuchamp not
only allowed for deferredaction but played with it as his verysubject. The language of suspended
delays,the trope of missedencounters,the concernwithinfra-mince causalities,the obsessionwithrep-
etition,resistance,and reception,is everywhere in his work,whichis, like trauma,like the avant-garde,
definitivelyunfinishedbut alwaysalreadyinscribed.As but one example,take the famousspecifications
for the readymadesin "The Green Box": "byplanningfora momentto come (on such a day,such a
date, such a minute), 'to inscribe a readymade'-The readymadecan later be looked for.-(with all
kindsof delays). Theimportant thingthenisjust thismatterof timing,thissnapshoteffect,like a speech
deliveredon no matterwhatoccasion but at suchand suchan hour.It is a kind of rendezvous"(Essential
Writings,p. 32).
52. In a sense the verydiscoveryof Nachtrdglichkeit is deferred.Howeveroperativein such textsas
theWolf-Man case history,itwasleftto differentreaderslikeLacan and Laplanche to makeitstheoretical
implicationsexplicit. Moreover,Freud could not be fullyaware that his own thoughtdeveloped in
nachtrdglich fashion:e.g., not only the returnof trauma in his workbut also the double temporality
throughwhichtraumais conceived there-the diphasticonset of sexuality,the fearof castration(that
requiresboth a traumaticsightingand a paternalinjunction),and so on.

32 OCTOBER
and visual art (the famousdebate between the Minimalistsand Fried is but one
battlein thislong war),but also the theoreticalelaborationof museologicaltime
and culturalintertextuality (announced byartistslike Smithsonand developedby
artistslike Lothar Baumgartenin the present). Here I wantonlyto registerthat
similarquestions,posed in different ways,have also impelled the crucialphiloso-
phies of the period: e.g., the elaborationof Nachtriiglichkeit
in Lacan, the critique
of "expressivecausality"in Althusser,the genealogical analysesof Foucault, the
reading of repetition and difference in Gilles Deleuze, the articulation of
differancebyJacques Derrida.53"It is the veryidea of a firsttimewhichbecomes
enigmatic,"Derrida writesin "Freud and the Scene of Writing"(1966), a funda-
mentaltextof thisentireantifoundationalera. "It is thusthe delaywhichis in the
beginning."54 So it is forthe avant-gardeas well.
53. In the essaydevotedto thisconcept,perhapsthe crucialone in the shiftfroma structuralist to a

poststructuralistproblematic,Derrida writes:"Differance is neithera wordnor a concept. In it, however,
we shall see thejuncture-rather than the summation-of whathas been mostdecisivelyinscribedin
the thoughtofwhatis conveniently called our 'epoch': the differenceofforcesin Nietzsche,Saussure's
principleof semiologicaldifference, differenceas the possibilityof [neurone] facilitation, impression
and delayed effectin Freud, differenceas the irreducibility of the trace of the other in Levinas,and
the ontic-ontological differencein Heidegger" (Speech and Phenomena,trans. David B. Allison
[Evanston,Ill.: NorthwesternUniversity Press,1973], p. 130).
54. Jacques Derrida, Writing trans.Allan Bass (Chicago: University
and Difference, of Chicago Press,
1978), pp. 202, 203.


E. The Duchamp Effect - Hal Foster

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

E. The Duchamp Effect - Hal Foster

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

E. The Duchamp Effect - Hal Foster

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What's Neo about the Neo-Avant-Garde?

Author(s): Hal Foster

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

It is no secretthatpostwarculturein NorthAmericaand WesternEurope is

1. PeterBiirgerposes the problemof the neo-avant-garde in Theory oftheAvant-Garde

OCTOBER 70,Fall 1994,pp. 5-32. ? 1994 Hal Foster.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

formof a rigorousreading.2The implicationis that,iftrulyradical (in the sense

2. Michel Foucault, Language,Counter-Memory, Practice,ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

omission"fundamentalto each discourse.4Similar,too, are the motives:not only

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Lucio Fontana,Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni,Ad Reinhardt,RobertRyman,and so

7. For a discussionof thistrumping,see my"The Crux of Minimalism," in Individuals,

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

principlesof autonomousart and expressiveartist,the firstthroughan embrace

8. Obviouslyboth formulations requirequalification.Not all the readymadesare everyday objects;

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Constructivism-in any case to repositionart in relation not only to mundane

The central text on this question remains TheoryoftheAvant-Garde by the

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Duchamp, the earlychance experimentsof Andre Bretonand Louis Aragon,the

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

as to aestheticism.And the thirdstage occurswhenthisaestheticismcomes under

Bourgeois societyis the most developed and the most complex

15. A Productivist evenin theotherwiseanarchistic

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

19. On the latterpoint see Buchloh,"MarcelBroodthaers:Allegoriesof the Avant-Garde," Artforum

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Biurger,is at best pathetic and farcical,at worstcynicaland opportunistic.Here

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

can claim to be advanced as arttoday.23Second, it ignoresthat,ratherthan invert

Immodestlyenough,I wantto do to BfirgerwhatMarxdid to Hegel: to right

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

push thiscritiquefurther:in itsattemptto negateart,it is argued,the avant-garde

life-but onlyto desublimatethem,to open themup to violentaggressions.For a contemporary ver-

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

there will be no more representation."32Here Rodchenko declaresthe end of

32. Alexander Rodchenko, "Working with Mayakowsky,"in FromPainting to Design: Russian

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Marcel Broodthaers,Daniel Buren, Michael Asher,and Hans Haacke, who were

Of course mythesishas its own problems.First,thereis the historicalirony

36. The Musied'artmoderne of MarcelBroodthaersis the masterpieceof thisanalysis,but let me offer

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

null and void, these developmentshave produced new spaces of criticalplayand

necessityof some autonomyforart (54). Buchloh is more dismissive."The primaryfunctionof the

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

political ramifications could be sorted out, let alone elaborated.40 On the

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

physicalpresence (as in site-specificartof the 1970s),to a formof criticalmimicry

43. Buren quoted in Lucy Lippard,Six Years:theDematerialization oftheArtObject from1966 to 1972

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM

Situationistthan situated,thereare strongechoes of the oracular,oftenmachistic

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 23:41:09 PM