Avant-garde
What does the avant garde mean?
Is it still possible to be truly avant garde?
Avant-garde is a broad term, in the English Dictionary “the avant-garde” means
painters, writers, musicians, and other artists whose ideas, styles, and methods are very original or modern in comparison to the period in which they live, but Avant-garde referring to the art movement of the 20th century was a reaction against the ideas and values of the Art Nouveau.
The avant-garde movement emerged during the industrial revolution and before that Art Nouveau was considered the representation of beauty and the prestigious kind of art by society, different from the decorative arts (previously created by William Morris), the art Nouveau didn’t opposed to the industry, but was directly linked to it, as it was intended to be an adornment to pre-manufactured products. Art Nouveau, just like most of art today, was created for added value to industrial products, so that product could be sold for a highest price, however there wasn’t any difference between one of this products and any other made by the industry, the quality was exactly the same, the only thing that would change was that after the fabrication of this product, it would be named ash art and its prices would be incredibly much more expensive.
The art of everyday life that before was directly linked to the pleasure and understanding of the individual, now has become something completely industrial, alienated and commercial. The industrial world had destroyed the idea of experimentation and expression of subjectivity and everything had to follow a pattern to be considered good or beautiful.
When the Avant-garde art rose it gave back the power of experimentation to the individual, a way for people that didn’t fit in that established system to find back their subjectivity and express it. Different from Art Nouveau, the Avant-garde art didn’t care about looking beautiful and finished, most of the art pieces were made with ancient and manual techniques, for example woodcut, in order to focus the attention in the production process, not in the finished perfect product, this way showing the different parts of the individual that were lost by the industrial world, as well as sexuality, dreams and desire.
Avant-garde art has no fear to show the deformation that industry causes in the individual, being an avant-garde artist essentially meant reflecting about yourself in the world and expressing your subjectivity.
Avant-garde art definitely provoked a rupture with the cultural tradition of the 19th century; it was constantly changing, so every time a certain visual identity became acceptable, a completely different one would already emerge to disturb the status quo, as the time was passing the movement became more and more political, wanting to create a new form of communication that would be accessible for everyone and that would questioned everything that the society accepted as normal, that was what leaded the movement, which started as a way to represent the individuality, to intervene and change the society from a self-reflective point of view.
Other institutions, such as the Bauhaus, were a consequence of the Avant-garde art movement; it definitely had a big impact on the world and how we see culture nowadays. In my opinion it is very rare to be truly Avant-garde currently, that’s because the capitalist system has found a way to turn everything into a consumption idea. All human needs are explored to be transformed into a product to be consumed.
In contemporary society the idea of creating art just for the process of creating art is no longer viable and the grand media is controlled by the richest companies that just have their own interests as their main goal, selling the idea of freedom as if it was the same as consumer choice. Moreover this system has so much power that it is able to corrupt any true attempt of connection with the individual by turning it into an experience that can be counted and consumed.
An example of it is that nowadays many artists use social media to show their creative process, something that could provoke a true reflection towards the means of production becomes a content that you can consume on the internet and use as a distraction to avoid reflecting about your own life.
Someone can watch it without provoking any significant reflection; our world became so ephemeral that in just some seconds you would be paying attention to the next thing. Everything that is not part of the system is not relevant to today’s society and everything that is part of the system can easily be corrupted and then forgotten.
Sources:
https://laart.art.br/blog/performance-na-arte/
Books:
Teoria da Vanguarda — Peter Burger
O retorno do real — Hal Foster