DANY, Hans-Christian; KNOLL, Valérie (ed.); LOICHINGER, Hannes (ed.)
No Dandy, No Fun

Just in time to be slipped under your Christmas tree… though this would not be very dandyish, would it?

This much-expected, elegant book is published as a sequel to the eponymous show held at Kunsthalle Bern in 2020–21 and develops as an untimely essay on the figure of the dandy, its avatars and vicissitudes…

“As the old order collapses, the dandy makes no claim to be leading an exemplary life. He does not defend property or privileges. He finds conflicts over the distribution of goods distasteful. To the dandy, any kind of war, even a war of liberation, seems an affair of the benighted, of those who don't realise that the only point of putting on a uniform is to look good in it. As an ascetic, he has always been in favour of less of everything, and opposed to any claims to novelty, which generally prove to be little more than advertising for a new product. The dandy doesn't ask how he wants to live; he lives, albeit with a sad countenance. He proposes no solutions, and denounces nothing as false—since he makes no declarations of any kind. He simply plays a different game.”

Published by Sternberg Press / Kunsthalle Bern, 2023
Design by HIT
Essays / Art Theory