Design and Crime

In Design and Crime, Hal Foster discusses the place of architecture and design, and art and criticism, within contemporary culture. In the first section, he examines how the market and culture are increasingly merging. He focuses on how design culture, which infiltrates every moment of daily life, links identities to brands. In his essays on two popular contemporary architects, Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas, he analyzes the connections between architecture, show business, and the global city. In the second section, he explores the historical link between modern art and the modern museum, touching upon the judgments of some proponents of modernity such as Baudelaire and Valéry. He traces the course of art history and criticism under the dominance of visual communication culture. He raises questions about the fate of modernism and postmodernism.