Art-Architecture Complex in the Barnes and Noble Review

Hal Foster's new book comes off as a litlle bit menacing, according to Jason Farrago, reviewing The Art-Architecture Complex for the Barnes and Noble Review. With the allusion to Roosevelt's well-known phrase leading the charge, Foster menaces and critiques his way to a convincing argument that "'image-making and space-shaping' have become part of one continuous field ... and that might not be such a good thing."

Why, exactly, this might not be such a good thing, has much to do with the economics and the ideology that informs artists and architects who, "in tune with the abstraction of cybernetic spaces and financial systems," encase the ever-increasing unaccountability and predation of financial and governmental institutions in ethereal skylines and transparent glass domes.

According to Farrago, Foster "is at his best" in this "nexus" of art and architecture, taking a "withering look at "the design of art museums, the churches or palaces of our time"—monuments to an age where money is made from money, and institutions seem determined to consume until everything has disappeared but the buildings.

Visit Barnes and Noble Review to read the article in full.