What exactly IS the avant-garde?
 

It's a word that gets thrown around a lot here (as much by me as anyone, I admit) but one that rarely receives any attention as to what it actually IS. I'm not so bothered about what sites like Wikipedia say as much as what you think.

Here's hoping that this turns into something interesting.

I would say avant-garde is something out of the ordinary, and really away from the mainnstream. I think that is just a generelized statement.

well its a good point. i am not really sure what i mean by it but i use it a lot when i try to dexcribe music i like to people who dont really know that particular style. either that or they say it first.

*hugs Residents albums*

Don't wish them away!

avant garde literally is the advance force of an army (vanguard)and this harks back to the time when artists saw themselves as a forward moving cultural force that would change society. they took that from bolshevism if im not mistaken. then again one of the first "avant-gardes" were the protofascist futurists. (!!)

the "avant garde" in anything means "the leading edge"

avant garde , becaus eit IS the leading edge of wahetevr field you are talking about, is out of the ordinary, but being out of the ordinary is not a criteria for the avant garde.

The thing about the Bolshevik/Futurist thing tends to make it quite era specific. There are those who think of it as just that: an exclusively European movement that was a response to WWI and which died off with the rise of Fascism in the 30s.

yes, the avant-garde proper died out around the 30s maybe with the surrealists.

the term however has stuck to accept broader connotations as cheeto implies, minus the political implications.

it is definitely a military term

vanguard/rearguard

vanguard in french is avant-garde.

but properly speaking, it's roughly between cubism and the 40's.

maybe starting with german expressionism actually... hm...

From Grove:

A term derived from French military history where it signified an advance group clearing the way for the main body of troops. The connotations of frontiers, leadership, unknown territory and risk accompanied the term as it was appropriated for and by artists. An early instance of such appropriation was Saint-Simon's proposal that artists might serve as an ‘avant garde’ in the establishment of his new secular and scientific utopia (Opinions littéraires, philosophiques et industrielles, 1829). This is of some significance, as it already suggests that an avant garde might be motivated both by intellectual specialization and by social dissent.

In our own age the term is often used loosely to describe any artists who have made radical departures from tradition, but it has also been freighted with particular meanings, and these have supported a more specific usage referring to art histories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the era of cultural history usually labelled ‘Modernism’. Here an avant garde would be differentiated from an ars nova and from an ars subtilior, neither of which need be period-specific. Thus an avant garde shares with an ars nova its experimental profile, and with an ars subtilior its élitist taste-public, but it carries two additional burdens, both relatable to Saint-Simon's use of the term. First there is a commitment to the idea of continuous progress within a single, notionally unified culture (underlying even its most anarchic manifestations), together with an acknowledgment that such progress is barely compatible with any suggestion of limits or boundaries to our knowledge and experience. Secondly there is an active engagement – whether critical (as in Adorno's interpretation) or reintegrative (as in Peter Bürger's) – with a social world from which it feels itself separate. In both respects an avant garde is historically contingent, and thus may have a defined end as well as a beginning.

Within the historical period of Modernism we can sharpen the categorical focus of avant-garde music by distinguishing it from two opposing categories. The first is ‘classical music’, a category that emerged in the 19th century and was institutionalized above all in the public concert. The second is ‘popular music’, distinguished by its untroubled acceptance of the commodity status inherent in a middle-class ‘institution of art’ (to use Bürger's phrase). Relative to these repertories, an avant garde began to take on a clear profile in the late 19th century, though it was made up of aesthetically and stylistically contrasted elements. One variety is associated especially with the so-called New German School, notably through the programmes (and rhetoric) of Modernism – a ‘music of the future’ – proposed by Wagner and the Liszt circle. This prepared the ground of Schoenberg's blatant defiance of the cultural market-place. His Society for Private Musical Performances represented a powerfully symbolic moment in the development of the avant garde, closing off the populace in the interests of preserving musical language from further degeneration.

A considerable pretension attaches to this increasingly specialized ‘project of greatness’ in art, and that pretension, itself a function of aesthetic autonomy, might be viewed as a prerequisite for the Modernist aesthetic. Music was much more than an object of beauty; it was a mode of cognition, a discourse of ideas whose ‘truthfulness’ should be protected. It was from this vantage point, predicated on the authority of an avant garde (understood as ‘the most advanced stage of the dialectic of expressive needs and technical means’, Paddison, 1996), that Adorno surveyed the entire history of Western music. Significantly, he distinguished between the spirit of the early 20th-century avant garde and the New Music of the 1950s and 60s (Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio, Ligeti). This too has been labelled an avant garde, and some of its devices (multiple serialism, electronic composition, aleatory procedures and so on) described, often pejoratively, as ‘avant-garde techniques’. Certainly the New Music shared with early Modernism the commitment to a specialized, progressive and ‘authentic’ art, and to a ‘rhetoric of endless innovation’ (Williams, 1989). Yet there is also a sense in which it represented an ‘official’ Modernism, supported by the institutions (‘growing old’ was Adorno's formulation), and as such it was far removed in tone from the explosive, campaigning and dissenting Modernism of that earlier period, when the bourgeois-romantic project of greatness reached its apotheosis.

A very different face of the avant garde was the subversive, anti-bourgeois protest associated with Dadaism and surrealism, given musical expression by Satie, and further developed in the radical aesthetic promoted by Cage and others in the aftermath of World War II. For Bürger this was the true avant garde, distinguished conceptually from Modernism through its rejection of the ‘institution of art’ and of aesthetic autonomy (paradoxically it represented for Bürger an attempt at reintegrating the aesthetic and social spheres). Yet from today's perspective Bürger's position seems a development of Adorno's rather than a major departure. More recent critical theory has been compelled to go further, addressing a growing perception (it may be disillusioning or cathartic) that any notion of a single culture, on which modern art was predicated, is no longer viable. Where music is concerned, those explosive tensions between the polarized repertories (avant-garde, classical, commercial) of a unified, albeit increasingly fragmented cultural world have been defused with astonishing ease. Disparate musics can apparently co-exist without antinomies or force fields.

Within critical theory the responses to this ‘postmodern condition’ have ranged from Andreas Huyssen's cautious welcome of postmodern art, provided its critical potential is acknowledged, to Jürgen Habermas's proposal that Modernism remains an ‘incomplete project’, now in search of a new communicative pragmatism. Elsewhere, and especially outside the Adornian tradition, postmodernism has been eagerly embraced by cultural theorists such as Jean-François Lyotard, by musicologists such as Lawrence Kramer, and by many composers for whom it seems to offer a cathartic sense of release from the prohibitions of postwar Modernism. In such a climate the fate of an avant garde is clearly open to question. Arguably the concept can have only a narrow, and perhaps a rather emasculated, definition within today's culture, associated with a continuing but now decentred Modernist project. That project is sanctioned rather than dissenting. It occupies a single corner of a plural cultural field. It is neither threatened by, nor threatens, the politics and aesthetics of mass culture.

By Jim Samson
broken into paragraphs by request

Or, less specifically:

The pioneers or innovators in any art in a particular period. For example, Beethoven.

I don't like that term. I don't think I've ever used it.
I like music and art that challenges me or makes me split my sides laughing.
If you have to classify it into a term, then the emotional impact and originality of the artwork is somewhat lost...or at least taken away....just a little bit by the over analyzation.

Dig it, think about it, let it go through you, let it effect you. Don't put it in a box and confine it.

Boy...I sound like a fucking hippie. I'm gonna go drink a beer.

or myself in the field of bad-assitude

oich my eyes man. paragraphs please...

yeah but during the avant garde proper, artists believed they were leading the masses into world revolution. years later auden would write that "poetry makes nothing happen".

in that sense punk & hardcore could be properly called avant-garde as they saw themselves as the voice of a revolution/rebellion.

I don't necessarily agree with that article comepletely, but I don't see how there can be an avant-garde within popular music. There is no "continuous progress within a single, notionally unified culture." It's almost the opposite: static repetition of the same music (with surface variations) in a huge constellation of cultures. I don't think that an avant-garde is possible at all anymore because I see no continuous progress within a practice anywhere.

I am optimistic that I'm wrong or that it's only a matter of time though. I guess it depends on how you define "notionally" though. Whatever. Lame.

i hate to sound like a cultural studies twat, but you[re speaking of the postmodern rejection of great narratives. :p :D

(seriously! )

I think it has something to do with beards.

I always thought it meant "against the grain"

Oh, ok. Shit. You'll have to educate me, !@#$%!. I have a general idea of what you're talking about, but I haven't read what I'm supposed to, I guess. I'm just saying that an avant-garde is contigent on there being a perceived trajectory within a defined musical practice. I find it really depressing that there is no defined practice or trajectory today, but sometimes (often) I think that I'm just not looking at it the right way, so I'm primed and ready to be convinced otherwise.

lyotard's "the postmodern condition" makes a lot of commonplace points but summarizes this quite well, while managing to talk ass about science.

if i can cheapen these arguments with a swift summary think of modernism as ruled by the idea of progress. progress is the big narrative. hegel and marx having the notion of history reaching a final goal.

with postmodernism all faith in "great narratives" is lost-- especially, faith in progress. this relates a bit to the discussion on revolutions form the other thread. there is no progress, history is random, cultures interpenetrate, there is no "center", there so the project of modernity collapses and the avant-garde with it.

i hope this explanation doesnt suck, though im sure it oversimplifies. im working at the same time i post this. slackerdom...

Roughly, it means, "pushing the boundaries of culture forward."

Of course, it's derived from the military term "vanguard" as has already been described in other posts.


all I have time for at the moment is wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde
The origin of the application of this French term to art is still debated. Some fix it on May 17, 1863, the opening of the Salon des Refusés in Paris, organised by painters whose work was rejected for the annual Paris Salon of officially sanctioned academic art. Salons des Refusés were held in 1863, 1874, 1875, and 1886.

Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm, or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Postmodernism posits that the age of the constant pushing of boundaries is no longer with us.

Postmodernism posits that avant-garde has less applicability (or no applicability at all) in the age of the postmodern.

Here's one for you chaps and chapesses: give me the difference between what is "experimental" and what is "avant-garde" music.

I anticipate your replies.

My communications teacher described it as 'off the wall' or 'inventive'.

OK, that's pretty much what I thought you were getting at. I still have faith in progress - just because one practice ends doesn't mean another can't take its place. The project of modernity didn't collapse, it just ran its course.

the avant garde in music is always on the leading edge. "experimental" means NOTHING, each and every composer experiments. where do you draw the line and say "this" is experimental as opposed to "that?" you know?

avant garde is the cutting edge, and by virtue of that, it is not always enjoyable. the ctting edge, the avant garde, is where the mistakes are made. pop music is so boring specifically because it does not seek to create new things, instead looking to perfect old tried-and-true formulas.
avant garde artists, like sonic youth were in the early 80's, are either loved or hated. it is quite a didactic situation.

THIS Thread represents everything I love about this board...

I won't give you my interpretion of 'Avant-Garde' because you have all argued your points so well there is nothing construstive I can say.

Another reason why an avant-garde may be harder to locate today centres on the issue of kitsch.

Clement Greenberg describes kitsch as an art form that takes the effect of the avant-garde without taking into consideration the intent behind its original production.

Say a filmmaker in the 1920s rejects the idea of rational comprehension, because he feels that a belief in rationalism led directly to the outrages of WW1. A young ambitious director today can watch the resulting film, but simply say to himself, wow, that looks cool. He then copies the effect (but not the underlying idea) in a video he makes for an indie band, and then gets it played on MTV2. This, unlike the original film, is not avant-garde, but rather an example of kitsch.

Perhaps "experimental" has become the common euphemism for "avant-garde" now that postmodernist philosophy holds that there is no such thing as avant-garde, and that everything has been done before, nothing is new under the sun, and nothing's shocking, so to speak. To me, it's a bleak cop-out to hold that (according to postmodernism) that there is no longer an avant-garde. It's like saying that there will never be another visionary artist, which is poppycock.
Besides, postmodernism was already in full swing when, for one example, Sonic Youth came around in the early '80s and made actual songs out of what was previously only recognized as noise. Is their work merely a collage of other elements or is there anything "new" about Sonic Youth? I think there is plenty that is "new" with Sonic Youth, that their art is quite valid, and that they are obviously an avant-garde group of musicians who make music largely within the rock 'n' roll idiom and have made some significant contribution to said music to push it forward. If one prefers the term "experimental" to "avant-garde," then so be it.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
; these developments (reevaluation of the entire Western value system (love, marriage, popular culture, shift from industrial to service economy)

So, in a nutshell, postmodernism also signifies the time from which everything started officially haha going to hell in a handbasket (the switch from industrial to service economy). Wiki says the term originated as a description for architecture in 1949, but didn't take hold really until the '60s; one could argue, I suppose, that postmodernism was officially ushered in during the atomic age and its absurdism has pervaded more minds throughout the space and computer ages. Of course, there are a million instances to consider, but perhaps postmodernism as we define it was ushered in when Time published their "Is God Dead?" issue on April 8, 1966.

Sonic Youth perfectly define most conceptions of postmodernism: freely borrowing from high and low culture and turning them into something that defies both. In this respect they join a tradition within (for want of a better word) 'rock' music that also includes The Beatles, The Velvets, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Radiohead, Bjork and Sigur Ros. In this respect, Bebop and Fusion jazz are other styles which embrace certain key elements of postmodernism.

IAs such, a band like the Butthole Surfers are arguable even more interesting. They also focused on hierarchies, but those that existed almost entirely within the confines of low culture. Before they arrived, the 'heavy rock' influence of bands such as Sabbath and Led Zep had been effectively exorcised from post-punk rock. By fusing this influence with more 'acceptable' elements of hardcore, punk, etc., they took the idea of the postmodern into a totally unexpected direction - based around the idea that within 'high' and 'low' culture there remains a hierarchy of high and low culture. If that makes sense.

I'm going with Rob's interpretation.

Perfect analogy. And in that case, I also agree that the contemporary filmmaker you utilize as an apt example is a kitchy artist. And kudos for the Greenberg reference. (as you alone (probably) know), he was instrumental to abstract expressionist painting being accepted.

And from this it follows that postmodernism holds that all art is kitsch, because postmodernism holds that there is no longer any such thing as the "avant-garde." And while things might certainly seem that way given our contemporary cultural malaise, it just isn't true. Again, postmodernism maintains that there is nothing new under the sun, everything has been done before, and nothing's shocking. The whole philosophy of postmodernism (as opposed to modernism) is merely a case of the lunatics running the asylum and is all a bunch of doublespeak bullshit because the critics ran out of words to creatively describe art. The rise of conceptualist art in the late '60s-early '70s threw them for a loop, you see; some called it "neo-dadism" at first. At any rate, Duchamp was crowned in effect by these esoteric snobs as art's last true visionary. And it was decided that everything after Duchamp is merely a kitschy hodgepodge of the art that came beforehand. And while this orientation often holds true, it still doesn't make it an absolute truth. It's really more of a guideline than a gospel.

Lady: We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy, he's "in
your face." You've heard the expression "let's get busy"?
Well, this is a dog who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and
thoroughly.
Krusty: So he's proactive, huh?
Lady: Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous
paradigm.
Writer: Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just
buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
[backpedaling] Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that.
[pause] I'm fired, aren't I?
Myers: Oh, yes.

"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"

Similarly, "postmodernism" is merely a word that stupid people use to make themselves seem more intelligent. That's all, folks!

Furthermore, postmodernism is obviously flawed as a "philosophy" because it maintains that there will never be any more artistic visionaries. This is ludicrous as there are many art forms ("art" is not only visual arts and painting) where visionary (i.e., avant-garde) truly forward-thinking work is being accomplished to this day.

Very true. Another problem I have with the whole postmodern thing is how much of it can just as easily be applied to key figures within modernism, such as James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, the surrealists, etc, etc.

Greenberg is probably the writer who I turn to most when thinking about these types of things. His Modernist Painting essay has certainly had a massive influence on the way that I think about the place and function of art.

well what habermas would argue is that the project of modernity remains unfinished and its discontents jumped off too early into postmodernism so to speak.

the thing is postmodernism means a lot of things in different fields. in architecture, is the joyous return to the pastiche. in poetry, who knows! in fiction, it's the pastiche and science fiction and a lot of things. in philosophy it is the disillusionment with modernity and the idea of progress-- i supposed this stems from WWII and the prospect of "mutual assured destruction", the ravaging of the environment, the social alienation in advanced societies, etc, etc.. it might also be simply the ideology that corresponds to the mode of production of late capitalism (service economy, computers, etc).

i have slept 30 minutes in the last 36 hours so im going to stop before i get a stroke, but this has been quite enjoyable.

demonrail, you've been on a roll! i didnt know this side of you, and im quite impressed. i wish i could answer but i'm trying to prevent an aneurysm. so i hope i can do that later.

cheers fools, the lot of you :p :D

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzz

Post-Modernism as I see it is just the death throes of certain specific trajectories in art. Raising it to the level of a philosophy is ridiculous, but I have to admit that I like some of the products of post-modernism in music.

If there is an avant-garde in music today, it is located in rock music, electronic music, minimalist music, etc. In that sense, Sonic Youth were (are?) in the avant-garde and represent (among others) a new trajectory and a new practice. The reason I love SY and hang out at this board is because I think that they represent THE direction or at least an aspect of it.

The problem that many have though is adjusting to something new. At every major artistic upheaval (usually brought about by external social changes - the ars nova is a good example, or the "florentine camerata" changes around 1600 is better maybe) there will be those that can't adjust. I think we're in a period like this, only about 40 years in I think, though you might push it back to the end of WW2. I'm speaking about music specifically.

It's hard to say something substantial about something so new. You might say that time moves faster now, but I think that's an illusion. A cohesive practice lurks under what seems like sameness, but I'm still not convinced that there are forces that would allow something to get on its feet. New movements seem to be crushed by other forces. Anyway, I tihnk it's best to take the long view and just chill out.

Yes and no. Postmodernism might well believe in the death of an avant-garde through lack of originality but Greenberg's model lays emphasis more in artistic intention than it does originality. The music video filmmaker may well be doing something original (even by appropriating and transforming something that pre-exists him/her). However for Greenberg this remains kitsch simply because it lacks any broader social context of outright revolution.

As you know, Greenberg was a paid up Marxist. It therefore follows that his theory develops along such a revolutionary path. As such, his closest ally is, in many ways someone like Adorno, who is even more extreme (and interesting) regarding the social function of an avant-garde.

And Adorno raises his head.

;) It was only a matter of time, I suppose. But don't worry; give it a few more posts and we'll be deep in Walter Benjamin territory, no doubt.

I have no quarrel with Greenberg's art criticism. He destested so-called "postmodernist" art for the kitsch it is. Abstract Expressionism is about the individuation of the artist. Something that is anathema to communism. Integral to that process of true individuation, although, is the shedding of one's "false" self-identity, to be sure, and I suppose that's where Clement Greenberg connects it to communism. Greenberg, like Picasso, just saw communism as a way to a possible utopia. Of course, both incredible thinkers were still terribly wrong on that count.

The problem with postmodernist theory comes in when young artists are convinced through postmodernist horseshit that the entire artistic universe available to them isn't available anymore because it's been already done before. So, they set out to do something absurdist because it fits in with this "postmodernism" garbage. Why do you think so much terrible art is being made today? This is exactly the reason. Well, this and an abundance of lack of talent among established artists, emerging artists, and just about everyone else who tries to make art.

Artists that add their name to their respective artistic canons throughout history have always borrowed from the past and gained inclusion into the canon by paying the appropriate homage to the past that the current time demands and by also adding some novel element that progresses the art forward.

case in point: Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh, as we know, is the A-number one king daddy in today's art market. His works fetch the highest prices. He's widely recognized as a visionary genius. And he is.
But, with Van Gogh, or with any artist, one can deconstruct the work with a critical eye and see the influences/. For Van Gogh, it was the work of Millet. And he copies Millet in his early work in his very crude way. He finally flowers later on after coming into contact with his contemporaries: Gauguin, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc. which he also apes in his own way.
Moreover, his meager collection of Japanese wood-block prints were an instrumental inspiration to his art. Van Gogh's work helped to bring over to the Western world an Eastern conception of negative space and pictorial composition.
I've just enumerated many ways in which Van Gogh isn't original, yet he's regarded as a visionary genius.
And I do think he is a visionary genius, but I'm just trying to make a point here.

By this point, I surely do hope that I have made it abundantly clear what "postmodernism" is truly about. As the speed of information and technology has progressed, we have simply sucked the mystery (and hence the symbolic meaning) out of everything.

Again:
The whole philosophy of postmodernism (as opposed to modernism) is merely a case of the lunatics running the asylum and is all a bunch of doublespeak bullshit because the critics ran out of words to creatively describe art. The rise of conceptualist art in the late '60s-early '70s threw them for a loop, you see; some called it "neo-dadism" at first. At any rate, Duchamp was crowned in effect by these esoteric snobs as art's last true visionary. And it was decided that everything after Duchamp is merely a kitschy hodgepodge of the art that came beforehand. And while this orientation often holds true, it still doesn't make it an absolute truth. It's really more of a guideline than a gospel.