This trope of tragedy followed by farce is seductive - its cynicism is a protective response to many historical ironies - but it hardly sufficies as a theoretical model, let alone as a historical analysis. And yet in subtle ways it pervades criticism of contemporary art and culture, where its effect is first to construct the contemporary as posthistorical, a simulacral world of failed repetitions and pathetic pastiches, and then to condemn it as such from a mythical point of critical escape beyond it all. Ultimately it is this point that is posthistorical, and its perspective is most mythical where it purports to be most critical.

Hal Foster: "What's Neo about the Neo-Avant-Garde?" -- apropos.