Hi everyone
I largely agree with simon, attempts to lay claim to an idea of the avant
garde in a contemporary context seems somewhat forced - nostalgic even. Even
if the notion of some form of progressive or utopian impulse in the arts is
badly needed. Anyone who has had the
misfortune to attend the Frieze arts fair over the past few years will know
what i mean.
I've read Mark's book and will use it in teaching as it gives a solid
grounding in *some* of the subjects themes and issues - even if it is
problematic in many of the ways pointed out already.
>As a concept the avantgarde was always
>employed retrospectively to describe an area of practice and a group of
>practitioners who all had a shared agenda more or less amounting to an
>ideology.
Without wishing to sound pedantic, the idea that the avant garde was some
form of retrospective label used to group together
certain progressive forms of arts practice is not correct. The avant garde
as *idea* was used self-consciously by artists
(going back at least to the original 1863, opening of the Salon des
Refusés) as a way of describing their practice, i.e is not
a historicising process as formulated by others. It goes hand in hand with
idea of manifesto. Martin Puchner has written a fascinating
book on how the artistic avant gardes of the early modern movement
dovetailed with political movements such as marxism. Recommended.
tom corby
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 05.11.06 00:00, Chris Byrne wrote:
>
>> Net.art, according to Mark's own criteria of "self-definition" and "a
>> =20=
>>
>> common set of artistic strategies and concerns", could be claimed as =20
>> an avant-garde. However the remaining criteria form a rather shaky =20
>> foundation for the thesis: applying these, one might equally state =20
>> that printmaking, artists' books, or sculpture are avant-garde =20
>> "movements". The focus on a single decade starting in 1994 is =20
>> somewhat strange, historicising a term which clearly still has some =20
>> currency.
>
>
> Simon Biggs
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
> AIM: simonbiggsuk
>
> Research Professor, Edinburgh College of Art
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/
>
|