High Culture / Low Culture‘Defining the Avant-Garde’

richard.miles@leeds-art.ac.uk

Objectives:●Understand the term ‘avant-garde’●Question the way art/design education relies on the concept of the avant-garde●Understand the related concept of ‘art for art’s sake’●Question the notion of ‘genius’●Consider the political perspectives relating to avant-gardism●Question the validity of the concept ‘avant-garde’ today

Dictionaries link Term – ‘avant-garde’ with terms like innovation in the arts or pioneers

- idea of doing art/design work that is progressive – innovating - but also it refers to the idea of there being a group of people being innovative –

- 1. being avant-garde in the work you do - challenging, innovating etc.- 2. being a part of a group – being a member of the avant-garde

Marcel Duchamp

‘Fauves’Wild Beasts

Visual Communications

‘The second level aims to let you experiment within you chosen range of disciplines’

‘Our aim is to encourage students to take a radical approach

to communication’

To be a student on the course you need to enjoy:-‘Challenging conventions’

Printed Textiles& Surface Pattern Design

Our aim is to provide an environment which allows you to discover, develop, and express your personal creative identity through your

work’

‘Level one studies concentrate on ‘… experimentation’

Interior Design

‘We encourage students to challenge conventional thinking ’

Furniture‘Throughout the course you will be encouraged to form a personal vision

and direction based upon critical self –analysis’

Fashion/ClothingWe encourage you to develop your individual creativity to the highest

level . . .

‘Level one studies concentrate on . . . .experimentation’

Art and Design (Interdisciplinary)

‘What will unite all your creative output will be the ability to apply your creative and technical skills in innovative ways, which are not limited to

traditional subject boundaries’

LCAD quotes prioritise certain concepts:-

(feel free to question these)

1. Innovation [creating new stuff]

2. Experimentation [process involved in order to achieve new stuff]

3. Originality [to copy is bad, to be original is good]

4. Creative genius [to bring out a hidden creative depth held deep within the student]

Art for Art’s Sake

Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875)

End of the 19th /early 20th C

two approaches to avant-garde art

1. art that is socially committed [artists being the ‘avant-garde’ of society, pushing forward political objectives]

2. art that seeks only to expand / progress what art is (in itself and for itself) / art for art’s sake

Art for Art’s Sake

James Abbot McNeill Whistler

Nocturne in Black and Gold (1874-78)

Significant form

The relations and combinations of lines and colours, which when organised give the power to move someone aesthetically.

Clive Bell

Cezanne Mount St. Victoire (1900)

The “Art for Art’s sake” approach dominated much thinking and practice in 20thC art

Clement Greenberg

Pollock Lavender Mist (1950)

A major problem for the avant-garde is that it seems to necessitate ‘ELITISM’

So for those members of the ‘left wing’ [interested in social change] there was a tendency to have to rely on ACADEMIC TECHNIQUES

in order to appeal to the ‘public’.

What is Kitsch?

Constable Haywain (1821) [Not Kitsch]

Kitsch?C o n s t a b l e Definitely kitsch!

Durer Praying Hands (1508)Jumping across media

Simplification of style – repainted masterpieces for the modern eye

Commemoration

(Animal Themes) This is true kitsch as it aims to be taken seriously as fine art!

Jeff Koons Michael Jackson & Bubbles the Monkey (1988)

Toulouse Lautrec

Warhol

Thomas Kinkade

Carl Andre ‘Equivalent VIII’

K-Foundation award, 1994

Damien Hirst (2007) ‘For the Love Of God’

Adbusters

Awkward questions to ask your tutors

●1. Why does our work have to be ‘original’?●2. Is it possible to be ‘avant-garde’ and/or ‘original’?●3. If I make my work socially committed so that people can understand it can it still be avant-garde / innovative?