No Dandy, No Fun Looking Good as Things Fall Apart

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.

The essay follows the traces of this masquerade ball, moving among accounts of lives as they were lived, literary sketches and performances in the visual arts down to the present day. In a time of transition, it sifts through tactics in order to find a way towards a self-determined future.

The book is published as a sequel to the exhibition "No Dandy, No Fun" (curated by Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll), which was on view at the Kunsthalle Bern from October 17, 2020 – February 14, 2021.