Looking for Meaning; Now That Galleries Display Pictures of People Looking at Art in Museums,has Style Finally Triumphed over Content?

Renton, Andrew, The Evening Standard (London, England)

Byline: ANDREW RENTON

ONE of the criticisms that I always hear levelled at contemporary art is that it's really just a neat bit of design in disguise. There's no "art" or soul left in the work. It's a tough proposal to counter, so I jumped at the chance to talk through some of these questions last week with Hal Foster, one of the world's leading art historians, in front of a packed audience at the ICA.

Foster is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton, and there can't be a clued-in art student who hasn't grappled with one of his books.

Throughout his career he's looked at various movements central to 20th century art, such as minimalism or surrealism, and has managed to change the conventional wisdom on the subject. He's a founder and coeditor of October a journal so overwhelmingly influential in the past decade that, in the art history corridors of the world, the word itself is almost synonymous with art …

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Publication information: Article title: Looking for Meaning; Now That Galleries Display Pictures of People Looking at Art in Museums,has Style Finally Triumphed over Content?. Contributors: Renton, Andrew - Author. Newspaper title: The Evening Standard (London, England). Publication date: July 9, 2002. Page number: 43. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group.

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