Art after the Hipster: Identity Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics

155 Pages·2017·1.72 MB·English

by  Wes Hill (auth.)

ART AFTER
THE HIPSTER
Identity Politics, Ethics
and Aesthetics
Wes Hill
Art after the Hipster
DarrenSylvester,WhatHappensWillHappen(2012)
Wes Hill
Art after the Hipster
Identity Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics
WesHill
SchoolofArtsandSocialSciences
SouthernCrossUniversity
Lismore,NewSouthWales
Australia
ISBN978-3-319-68577-9 ISBN978-3-319-68578-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68578-6
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P
REFACE
Evoking a level of animosity from a bygone cultural moment, the hipster
belongstoatimewhentheeconomicadvantagesofculturalinnovationin
the arts were seriously believed. What that time was, and where we are
now, is this book’s subject, examined through the lens of art history and
the creativity hype of neoliberalism. Having been associated with post-
WorldWarTwobebopandbeatniksubcultures,thehipsterre-emergedin
the early 2000s as a form of generic individualism that was easily identifi-
able even if endlessly mutable. However, in recent years “hipster” has
become increasingly impotent as an accusation, shifting in its meaning to
refer less to an external identity than to a mode of deflection in which
authenticity and discernment are challenged only to be surreptitiously
reinforced. Marking a transition from a period in Western art when irony
and high-minded nonchalance reigned, the hipster appears in the context
of contemporary art not as a critical standpoint in itself but as the contin-
ually deferred subject position of creative practice. Today, ethical consid-
erations of identity overshadow discerning proclamations of cultural taste,
makingpalpableanuncertaintyaboutourcapacitytountanglecapitalism’s
thirst for reinvention from the artist’s thirst for subverting norms.
WesHill
v
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction:CaringTooMuchandNotEnough 1
2 TheTwenty-First-CenturyHipster 9
ArtyPluralism 9
IstheHipsterReallyDead? 11
HipsterPrivilege 12
HipsterHate 13
TheHipsterasaGlobalContemporaryPhenomenon 15
SlipperyHipster 18
Post-critical:LivingwithHypocrisies 22
Žižek’sHipsterOther 27
Rancière’sHipster:DissensusasConsensus 29
Rancière’sTheoryofAesthetics 31
PoliticsandEthics 34
TheHipsterasaProductoftheMiddleClasses 38
3 ThePostmodernHipster 47
HipsterOrigins 47
Broyard’sHipster:TheInauthenticityofBeingBlack 50
HipsterInfrapolitics 54
AestheticRivalries 57
ThePitfallsofHipsterCritique 60
vii
viii CONTENTS
Baudrillard’sHipsterasPostmodernConsumer 63
PostmodernCritiqueasNihilisticRevelation 65
DandiesandFla^neurs:TheOriginalHipsterIronists 68
WarholasProto-Hipster 70
Duchamp’sIronicKnowingness 73
HipsterIronyasAestheticFeeling:DeDuveonDuchamp 75
TheHipster’sSocialWithdrawalasSocialConnection 77
PasticheasPejorativePostmodernism 80
4 TheHipsterasanEntrepreneuroftheSelf 91
TheMarketLogicofNeoliberalism 91
1990sAlternativeCultureasProto-Hipsterism 93
TheSelf-SabotageoftheAlternative 95
TheArtyAlternativeoftheYBAs 96
CreativityasaToolofGentrification 98
Foucault’sEntrepreneuroftheSelf 100
ActivismWithoutCollectivity 103
ConscientiousCapitalism:Bourriaud’sRelationalAesthetics 107
HipsterUtopias 109
CombattingSameness:CuratingSubalternSubjectivities 111
CounteringCreativitywithInertia 114
Groys:FabricatingArtisticAuthenticity 117
GlobalArtUnderNeoliberalConditions 122
5 Conclusion 129
Bibliography 135
Index 145
CHAPTER1
Introduction: Caring Too Much
and Not Enough
Abstract In this section, the concept of the hipster is introduced as an
endlesslymutablesetof“arty”codesandasanutterance;aparadoxicalact
ofdenouncingculturaldiscernmentonlytosurreptitiouslyreinforceit.
Keywords Hipster(cid:129)Taste(cid:129)Cosmopolitan(cid:129)Egalitarianism(cid:129)Paradox
Anyone who has ever attempted to seriously think about the hipster as a
concept will be aware of how challenging it is to define, let alone to place
intoclearframesofreference.Thisisbecausetherearen’tmanypeoplewho
want to be labelled “hipster.” The word is overwhelmingly used as a
pejorative, and, as an admonition, it is peculiarly vague in its malleability,
capableofdescribingcreativeswhocaretoomuchornotenough;whoexist
inside or outside of the dominant social order; who represent stylized yet
anti-aesthetic ideals and who try to improve the social bond even while
promotingsocialdistinctions.Whenthehomogenousstylingsofasuppos-
edlycreativetropearemadeclear,itisnaturaltowonder:howdidwegetto
thispointwheretheartyandthegenericco-exist?
In the early 2000s, “hipster” emerged in the parlance of capitalist soci-
eties around the world, shifting beyond its original jazz and beatnik con-
notations to serve as a pejorative term for neoliberal taste. While the
“progressive” tastes of urban white Western males were ingrained in the
original hipster stereotype, over the course of the 2000s it came to
©TheAuthor(s)2017 1
W.Hill,ArtaftertheHipster,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68578-6_1
2 1 INTRODUCTION:CARINGTOOMUCHANDNOTENOUGH
encompassdifferentgendersandculturalbackgrounds,urbanandregional
settings, and entrepreneurs and luddites alike. Giving a new edge to the
Anglo-American and Western-European varieties of postmodernism, the
hipster traded postmodern cynicism for a bathetic form of cosmopolitan
egalitarianism.
When it was at its peak, “hipster” conveyed the speed and ease with
whichnicheideasandcommoditiesaredispersed(anddismissed)intheage
oftheInternet,mostconspicuouslyintheareasofartandcraft,alternative
culture (especially music) and vernacular fashion. However, at least since
2015,“hipster”hasbeenlosingitscurrency,inspiteofitsbeingimplicated
inhothousedebatessurroundinggentrification,culturalappropriationand
identity politics. Hipsters obviously remain recognizable in mass culture,
subcultures and “alternative subcultures” the world over—whatever these
termsactuallymeannow—buttheyarenolongersocompulsivelylabelled,
andthestereotypenowseemsboundtoamomentthathaspassed.Attrib-
utedmostlytomillennials,butalsotoanyoneundertheageofabout50,the
stereotypenowservesasasymboloftheaffectatiousandaspirationalterrain
onwhichdigitalculturewasestablished.
From the time that Internet memes first became a phenomenon in the
mid-2000s, artist memes and hipster memes have looked almost identical.
Bothcaricaturepeoplewhoaredesperatetobedistinctive,culturallyliterate,
ethically advanced or known for discovering some obscure phenomenon
before anyone else. The contemporary hipster is, of course, an update of
the bebop hipster, which was defined in Anatole Broyard’s 1948 essay as a
posture of “indefinable authority,” resembling a form of cultural
one-upmanshipthatoccupiesavernacularcriticalspace,reducingtheworld
to “schematic proportions.”1 Entailing those who are smugly in-the-know
andwhoclaimtobeoneofthosecoolfolkswho“getit”in-advance,Broyard
aptly used the term “priorism” to describe the African-American hipster’s
pretentiousposeofaprioriknowledge.2Inthetwenty-firstcentury,thistrope
that was once exclusive to African-American identity morphed, long after
NormanMailer’s“whitenegro,”intothestereotypeofliberal,neoliberaland
left-wing arty status. It led to “hipster” becoming linked to an enormous
rangeofculturalthings:craftbeer,vintagefloraldresses,burgersinbrioche
buns,cocktailsinjarsaswellascreativepersonificationssuchasDJ,filmbuff,
artcritic,curatorandartist,allofwhichembodyan“arty”sensibility.
I use the term “arty” to describe the hipster’s affectatious
appearance and to signal egalitarianism-as-aesthetics, as in Hal Fos-
ter’s 2003 description of relational aesthetics as an “arty party.”