Marx's reaction against G. W. F. Hegel, he sought to rebut Peter Bürger's assertion – which he made in Theory of the Avant-Garde (1974) – that the neo-avant-garde largely represented a repetition of the projects and achievements of the historical avant-garde, and therefore it was a failure. Foster's model was based on a notion of "deferred action" inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud. He conceded the failure of the initial avant-garde wave (which included such figures as Marcel Duchamp) but argued that future waves could redeem earlier ones by incorporating through historical reference those aspects that had not been comprehended the first time around. Gordon Hughes compares this theory with Jean-François Lyotard's. Foster has been critical of the field of visual culture, accusing it of "looseness". In a 1999 article in Social Text, Crimp rebutted Foster, criticizing his notion of the avant-garde and his treatment in The Return of the Real of sexual identity in Andy Warhol's work. Furthermore, this criticality spreads to both the practice and the field of design in his book Design and Crime (2002). Foster views his roles as art critic and art historian as complementary rather than mutually opposed, in accordance with his adherence to postmodernism. In an interview published in the Journal of Visual Culture, he said, "I've never seen critical work in opposition to historical work: like many others I try to hold the two in tandem, in tension. History without critique is inert; criticism without history is aimless". Bibliography Books Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, 1985. Bay Press. Compulsive Beauty, 1995. MIT Press. The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, 1996. MIT Press. Design and Crime (And Other Diatribes), 2002. 2nd. ed, 2011. Verso Books. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Anti-Modernism, Postmodernism, 2005. With Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh. Thames & Hudson. Pop (Themes & Movements), 2006. With Mark Francis. Phaidon Press. Prosthetic Gods, 2006. MIT Press. The Art-Architecture Complex, 2011. Verso Books. The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha, 2011. Princeton University Press. Bad New Days: Art, Criticism, Emergency, 2015. Verso Books. What Comes after Farce? Art and Criticism at a Time of Debacle, 2020. Verso Books. Brutal Aesthetics, 2020. Princeton University Press. Reprints Book reviews References External links Princeton Faculty: Hal Foster The MIT Press: Hal Foster American art critics American art