Exit Interview

"Exit Interview offers insight into the intellectual foundations and motivations of two of art history's most important critical voices, Hal Foster, Townsend Martin Professor of Art and Archeology at Princeton, and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, recently retired Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Harvard University. Over three conversations, Foster engages Buchloh on his childhood influences and aspirations; his time in Berlin communes, where he was close with Gudrun Ensslin and other members of the Red Army Faction; his experiences in London as an aspiring fiction writer; and his return to Germany in 1971 to work at art galleries, publish the short-lived but influential magazine Interfunktionen, and teach at the Dusseldorf Academy. Together they chart Buchloh's path from Europe to North America--first to Nova Scotia, then Los Angeles, and finally New York--and they discuss the important role of other art historians and critics like Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson. Foster and Buchloh delve into their successes and critical significance, as well as their oversights and omissions. Building on years of collaboration and friendship, Foster and Buchloh's compelling conversations have been edited, framed, and sequenced by the authors, building from biography and anecdote to important reflection on one's critical life as a whole"--