Hal Foster

From the distinguished art critic and historian, vital essays on key artists and critics, revealing how they redefined art and criticism over the last six decades. "Serious art anticipates the future as much as it reflects the present," Hal Foster remarked in a 2015 interview. "By the same token serious art history is driven by the present as much as it is informed by the past." In Fail Better, Foster, an art critic and historian whose influential work spans disciplines and decades, brings this peripatetic perspective to contemporary art, art criticism, art history, and his own work over the past 50 years. In these 40 texts--a few reprinted, most revised, some new--Foster reviews artists from Richard Hamilton and Jasper Johns to Gerhard Richter and Ed Ruscha; considers contemporaries from Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman to Jeremy Deller and Adam Pendleton; and traces the development of criticism since the early 1960s, with essays on such influential figures as Susan Sontag and Rosalind Krauss and institutions like Artforum magazine and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Taking his title from Beckett--"try again, fail again, fail better"--Foster notes that, etymologically, an essay is always an attempt, more or less failed. Critics fail artworks, because there can never be a definitive reading. And art fails its historical moment, because it cannot resolve the contradictions that prompt it. But in these failures Foster finds historical consciousness, and with it the promise of future work, future illumination. In his "reckonings" he turns his own long history of criticism to account, to try again, fail again, fail better--and succeeds in conveying shifting concepts of art and criticism, the work of key artists and critics, and the relationships between criticism, theory, history, and politics over the last six decades.

The Forgings, the groundbreaking series of industrially forged steel sculptures that the artist produced in 1955 and 1956, are brought together in one book for the first time, alongside complementary sketchbook drawings of the sculptures. This catalogue, documenting an exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, New York, is the first time that all ten Forgings have been on view together since 1956. The sculptures are accompanied by a series of works on paper leading up to The Forgings, as well as sketchbook drawings of the completed sculptures. With the The Forgings, David Smith translated the spontaneity of a brushed line drawing into sculptural form, manipulating thin steel bars to achieve expressive vertical abstractions. The Forgings were unprecedented as works created solely through an industrial machined process, but were perhaps even more radical as pre-Minimalist forms intended to provoke discrete responses in each viewer.

Imagining a new self equal to the new art of modernism; primordial and futuristic fictions of origin in the work of Guaguin, Picasso, F. T. Marinetti, Max Ernst, and others. How to imagine not only a new art or architecture but a new self or subject equal to them? In Prosthetic Gods, Hal Foster explores this question through the works and writings of such key modernists as Gauguin and Picasso, F. T. Marinetti and Wyndham Lewis, Adolf Loos and Max Ernst. These diverse figures were all fascinated by fictions of origin, either primordial and tribal or futuristic and technological. In this way, Foster argues, two forms came to dominate modernist art above all others: the primitive and the machine. Foster begins with the primitivist fantasies of Gauguin and Picasso, which he examines through the Freudian lens of the primal scene. He then turns to the purist obsessions of the Viennese architect Loos, who abhorred all things primitive. Next Foster considers the technophilic subjects propounded by the futurist Marinetti and the vorticist Lewis. These "new egos" are further contrasted with the "bachelor machines" proposed by the dadaist Ernst. Foster also explores extrapolations from the art of the mentally ill in the aesthetic models of Ernst, Paul Klee, and Jean Dubuffet, as well as manipulations of the female body in the surrealist photography of Brassai, Man Ray, and Hans Bellmer. Finally, he examines the impulse to dissolve the conventions of art altogether in the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, the scatter pieces of Robert Morris, and the earthworks of Robert Smithson, and traces the evocation of lost objects of desire in sculptural work from Marcel Duchamp and Alberto Giacometti to Robert Gober. Although its title is drawn from Freud, Prosthetic Gods does not impose psychoanalytic theory on modernist art; rather, it sets the two into critical relation and scans the greater historical field that they share.

In The Return of the Real Hal Foster discusses the development of art and theory since 1960, and reorders the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes. Opposed to the assumption that contemporary art is somehow belated, he argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive model of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is pervasive today. After the models of art-as-text in the 1970s and art-as-simulacrum in the 1980s, Foster suggests that we are now witness to a return to the real-to art and theory grounded in the materiality of actual bodies and social sites. If The Return of the Real begins with a new narrative of the historical avant-gard, it concludes with an original reading of this contemporary situation-and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics.

Prinssi Rohkea on suuri amerikkalainen klassikko. Sarjakuva saadaan nyt ensi kerran suomeksi koko loistossaan, upeissa väreissä. Laulava miekka tempaa lukijansa mukaan heti alkusivuilta sumuisille rämeille, myrskyäville merille, taisteluiden melskeeseen ja tietenkin Camelotiin, kuningas Arthurin hoviin. Maanpaossa kasvaneen Thulen nuoren prinssi Rohkean kohtalona on kulkea seikkailusta seikkailuun. Rohkean nokkeluus ja taistelutaidot pelastavat hänet monesta pälkähästä, kuten Morgan Le Feyn kauhujen linnasta ja pohjanmiesten käsistä. Laulava miekka on myös kasvutarina ja rakkauskertomus. Prinssi Rohkean suurin toive on päästä ritariksi - onnistuuko hän tavoitteessaan? Teos on suomennettu huolella ja vanhahtavaa sävyä kunnioittaen, jotta alkuperäisen mukainen vivahteikas kerronta pääsee oikeuksiinsa. Kirjan seikkailut on ensimmäisen kerran julkaistu vuosina 1937-1939. Hal Fosterin verrattoman varma viiva, historiallisen seikkailun suuruus ja hurtti huumori tekevät tästä albumista ajattoman lukuelämyksen!

If farce follows tragedy, what follows farce? Where does the double predicament of a post-truth and post-shame politics leave artists and critics on the left? How to demystify a hegemonic order that dismisses its own contradictions? How to belittle a political elite that cannot be embarrassed, or to mock party leaders who thrive on the absurd? How to out-dada President Ubu? And, in any event, why add outrage to a media economy that thrives on the same? What Comes After Farce? comments on shifts in art, criticism, and fiction in the face of the current regime of war, surveillance, extreme inequality, and media disruption. A first section focuses on the cultural politics of emergency since 9/11, including the use and abuse of trauma, paranoia, and kitsch. A second reviews the neoliberal makeover of art institutions during the same period. Finally, a third section surveys transformations in media as reflected in recent art, film, and fiction. Among the phenomena explored here are "machine vision" (images produced by machines for other machines without a human interface),"operational images" (images that do not represent the world so much as intervene in it), and the algorithmic scripting of information so pervasive in our everyday lives.

On a quest in the Asian lands of Cathay, Prince Valiant encounters a fire-breathing mechanical dragon and the legendary adventurer Prester John. Armies converge, mountains crumble, and a father and son are reunited. Mordred escapes imprisonment and treacherously stabs Arn, who learns that Maeve is soon to give birth. Val discovers a lost colony and wrestles with a tusked whale off the coast of Greenland, but a spell overcomes the expedition on the Isle of Lost Youth. Plus, an introduction by Turkish/German artist Ertugrul Edirne and behind the scenes of a heavy-metal interpretation of Prince Valiant. Universally acclaimed as the most stunningly gorgeous adventure comic strip of all time, Prince Valiant ran for 35 years under the virtuoso pen of its creator, Hal Foster. Starring a daring and gallant young hero, the series features epic swordfights, elaborate scenes of pomp and pageantry, and breathless plotting that always leaves the reader wanting more. Fantagraphics' deluxe editions, each collecting two years' worth of Sunday strips, boast superbly restored artwork that captures every delicate line and chromatic nuance of Foster's art.

On a quest in the Asian lands of Cathay, Prince Valiant encounters a fire-breathing mechanical dragon and the legendary adventurer Prester John. Armies converge, mountains crumble, and a father and son are reunited. Mordred escapes imprisonment and treacherously stabs Arn, who learns that Maeve is soon to give birth. Val discovers a lost colony and wrestles with a tusked whale off the coast of Greenland, but a spell overcomes the expedition on the Isle of Lost Youth. Plus: an introduction by Turkish/German artist Ertugrul Edirne and behind the scenes of a heavy-metal interpretation of Prince Valiant.

In Vol. 16, Arn goes berserk, and there are love triangles, slave rebellions, greedy governors, and more. In Vol. 17, Galan quests for a unicorn and King Arthurs sends Val on a mission. In Vol. 18, Val must win back the queen of (his) heart, Aleta.

The most visually opulent comic strip in the history of the medium celebrates its 50th anniversary with the marriage of Prince Valiant's son. Val goes in search of a northern spice route, which leads him into adventures among the Balts, the Greeks, the Lapps, and the Chinese. A Trojan Horse deception in reverse nearly wipes out Val's expedition, and a dreamlike encounter north of Cathay involves Yeti and other strange creatures. Back in Britain, Arn's bride strikes a blow against chauvinism and liberates the women of the village of Orr to exercise their true potential.

In Vol. 13, from the Middle East to the road to Rome, danger follows the noble Prince of Thule. In Vol. 14, Valiant fights battles large and small, and Prince Arn comes to the rescue. In Vol. 15, Arn lands on the New World, and Aleta is mistaken for a mermaid.

As this latest collection begins, Val and Arn are in Lappland, where they get involved with two twin brothers' struggle over succession. Arn consults a mystical hermit about whether his destiny intertwines with Maeve's, the daughter of an arch-enemy. With the sinister Mordred in control of Camelot, Val and Aleta seek to raise an army; this goal requires Val to capture a notorious outlaw, battle a troll, and find a hidden treasure. Arthur's forces come together at High Cross, and he wages an epic battle for the fate of Camelot, during which Arn becomes a knight of the round table. Also included, Prince Valiant writer Cullen Murphy and colorist Meg Murphy pay tribute to their mother, Joan, model for Aleta and other female characters for their father.

Hal Foster's Prince Valiant is the most illustrious heroic saga ever written and drawn for the Sunday newspapers. In full, glorious, restored color, this is the finest reproduction of this enthralling, romantic adventure serial ever published. This box set contains Vol. 10, in which Aleta is kidnapped, and Val fights famine. This volume also includes an introduction by legendary comics artist Timothy Truman and a special gallery containing more of Hal Foster's incredible Mountie paintings annotated by comics historian Brian M. Kane. In Vol. 11, Arvak the Red Stallion's first appearance occurs in this volume of the classically illustrative Sunday comic strip, based on the King Arthur myth. Bonus features include a gallery of Foster's rare and never-before-reprinted advertising art from the 1920s. There's a quest for the Holy Grail in Vol. 12. Also, Prince Val is trying to bust Sir Gawain out of jail.

In Volume 24 (1983-1984), a comedy of mistaken identities culminates in Val playing a game of life-or-death using live people as chess pieces. Arn's job as Arthur's Keeper of Parks involves defending against invading Saxons. Merlin gives Val a magic ring and a dire message for Arn. With all the other knights of the round table away from Camelot on a rescue mission, Val joins a hunt for a cattle-killing man-beast. Finding his opening, arch-enemy Mordred launches an attack on the defenseless kingdom, sending Arthur the severed leg of the mayor of each conquered town. Arn's love for Maeve takes a turn toward heartbreak and betrayal when the identity of her father is revealed. Hal Foster's Prince Valiant is the most illustrious heroic saga ever written and drawn for the Sunday newspapers. In full, glorious, restored color, this is the finest reproduction of this enthralling, romantic adventure serial ever published.