1. Nostalgia has also replaced transgression, or rather, nostalgia now simulates transgression. The Abstract Expressionists simulated transgression by their nostalgic adoption of the strategies of European modernism. The Neo Expressionists simulate transgression by their "parodic rehabilitation" of the early twentieth century; the post-modern architects accomplish the same thing by rehabilitating a pre-modernist vocabulary. 
2. This is the end of art 'as we know it.' It is the end of the art of art history. It is the end of urban art with its dialectical struggles. Today this simulated art takes place in cities that are also doubles of themselves, cities that only exist as nostalgic references to the idea of city and to the ideas of communication and social intercourse. These simulated cities are placed around the globe more or less exactly where the old cities were, but they no longer fulfill the function of the old cities. They are no longer centers; they only serve to simulate the phenomenon of the center. And within these simulated centers, usually exactly at their very heart, is where this simulated art activity takes place, an activity itself nostalgic for the reality of activity in art.

peter halley: Notes on nostalgia

http://www.peterhalley.com/