Avant-garde

Lore & Background

The French military term avant-garde originally identified a reconnaissance unit scouting ahead of the main army. In 19th-century French politics, it came to identify left-wing political reformists agitating for radical change.

By the mid-19th century, avant-garde referred to art using aesthetic innovation as a means of political and social change. Since the 20th century, the term identifies a stratum of the intelligentsia comprising novelists, writers, artists, and architects whose creative perspectives challenge the cultural values of contemporary bourgeois society. In the U.S. of the 1960s, post-WWII changes allowed avant-garde artists to produce works addressing matters of the day, usually in political and sociologic opposition to cultural conformity inherent to popular culture and consumerism.

Reader's Guide

The avant-garde has been central to the evolution of modern art and culture, pushing aesthetic boundaries and challenging societal norms. Its significance lies in its role as a force for innovation and critique, often opposing the conformist value system of mainstream society. Theoreticians like Clement Greenberg argued that the avant-garde opposes high culture and rejects the artifice of mass culture, while Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno noted that mass culture voids the artistic value of a work.

However, scholars have also highlighted troubling associations of avant-garde movements with authoritarian politics, such as those of Ezra Pound and F.T. Marinetti. The legacy of the avant-garde is complex, with some arguing that it has been co-opted by capitalist institutions, while others see it as interdependent with the arrière-garde. Its influence persists in ongoing debates about the role of art in society and the nature of artistic innovation.

Did You Know?

• The avant-garde is frequently defined in contrast to arrière-garde, which in its original military sense refers to a rearguard force.
• Some avant-garde figureheads, such as the American poet Ezra Pound and Italian futurist F.T. Marinetti, had alliances with twentieth-century authoritarian politics.