ARTICOLI / 4 / Rex Butler /
We could not perhaps imagine a less likely pairing than the radical “post-modernist” Jean Baudrillard and the well-known modernist art historian Michael Fried. Baudrillard is anti-aesthetic, while Fried defends art against minimalist anti-aesthetics. Baudrillard calls himself a nihilist, while Fried is widely regarded as conservative in his aesthetic choices. And yet both end up saying very similar things about photography. Why is this, and what does this unexpected connection or even coincidence have to tell us about Baudrillard’s work more generally?
