David Joselit, Pamela M. Lee; Six Propositions After Trump’s Second Victory. October 2025; (191): 3–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/octo_a_00542
In his important and all too timely account Late Fascism (Verso, 2024),
Alberto Toscano has diagnosed the enfeeblements of such historical analogizing
in confronting our present conjuncture. His project reads fascism not as a hard-
and-fast set of ideological contrivances, much less a coherent theory or philoso-
phy, but rather “within the totality of its process”—that is, fascism’s longue durée: a
“dynamic that precedes its naming.” If contemporary fascism retains “the racial
fantasy of national rebirth and the manic circulation of pseudo-class discourse,”
“late fascism” (like late capitalism) not only names the radically changed economic
context in which we find ourselves but also underscores how “classic fascist fixes
are out of time.”[…]
[Lateness] is at once a warning, descriptor, and a prompt. For one, it
forces us to think horizontally about new actors implicated in fascism’s current
constitution, not as an aberration to established authoritarian patterns but as its
logical, if seemingly contradictory, expansion.[…]
These six short propositions—there could be countless more—provide
blunt, incomplete, and yet still necessary points of departure for further reflection.
We are reminded of the words of a friend that embolden us to move in such direc-
tions, no matter the collective despair: The future is yet to be written. This is indeed
the work of lateness. Repeat: It is never too late.[…]
it is hard to pretend that art or
the art world can have any direct effect on American politics—or, more accurately,
any effect that isn’t largely illiberal.[…]
Why have so many who produce discourse around art lost faith in what art can do, and instead persist in asking it to do something it patently cannot achieve?”
Portable Gray, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2025. Pope.L The Chicago Years. https://doi.org/10.1086/737294
Grounded in the many meanings and ideas of “home,” This Must Be the Place is a major new exhibition showcasing works drawn from across the Walker’s dynamic collections. Walker Art Center. June 20, 2024 – April 29, 2029. Galleries 4, 5, 6.
