In Pretentiousness: Why It Matters, British art critic Dan Fox makes a powerful case for pretentiousness as  a mark of the brave and bold, and an essential ingredient of the arts - high, low and in between. And while calling something or someone pretentious is usually meant as an insult, Fox contends that  it is actually a form of class surveillance, intended to set a person or thing into its “proper” station. In conversation with Gideon Lewis-Kraus. 

External Link »