Exploring the proliferation of archival spaces in contemporary art, Hal Foster discusses key themes and preoccupations found in recent relational and post-relational art practices: those installations and other works that exhibit the kinds of tendencies theorized by Nicolas Bourriaud under the rubric of relational aesthetics and post-production. Foster analyzes the productive dilemmas and reductive difficulties that arise within these practices, narrowing his focus to track the somewhat oxymoronic idea of blind spots - sites that although normally overlooked, might still provide insights - in the work of Joachim Koester. Foster is Townsend Martin Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and former Professor of Art History at Cornell. Editor of the influential essay collection The Anti-Aesthetic, and author of several books including Compulsive Beauty; The Return of the Real; Design and Crime; and Prosthetic Gods, he is also a regular contributor to various journals including October, Artforum and the London Review of Books.