The Idea of the Avant-Garde PB: And What It Means Today

298 Pages·2015·16.194 MB·English

by  Leger Marc James

The Idea of the
Avant Garde
And What It Means Today
Edited by Marc James Léger

The Idea of the
Avant Garde
And What It Means Today
Edited by Marc James Léger
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
Left Curve
Oakland, CA
distributed exclusively in the US by Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © Manchester University Press 2014
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual
chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the
express permission in writing of both author and publisher.
Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
with
Left Curve Publications
www.leftcurve.org 
Distributed in the United States exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA
Distributed in Canada exclusively by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 07190 96914 hardback
First published 2014
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party
internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will
remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designed
by Csaba Polony
Typeset
by Left Curve Publications and Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Printed in Great Britain
by TJ International Ltd, Padstow
This book is dedicated to
Amiri Baraka, Chris Marker and Lebbeus Woods
• “Innovation enters art by revolution. Reality reveals itself in art in much the same
way as gravity reveals itself when a ceiling collapses on its owner’s head. New art search-
es for the new word, the new expression. The poet suffers in attempts to break down
the barrier between the word and reality. We can already feel the new word on his lips,
but tradition puts forward the old concept.” – Viktor Shklovsky • “This means that
in the psychology and ideology of avant-garde art, historically considered (from the
viewpoint of what Hegelians and Marxists would call the historic dialectic), the futurist
manifestation represents, so to speak, a prophetic and utopian phase, the arena of agi-
tation and preparation for the announced revolution, if not the revolution itself.” –
Renato Poggioli • “Through the commercial mechanisms that control cultural activ-
ity, avant-garde tendencies are cut off from the constituencies that might support them,
constituencies that are always limited by the entirety of social conditions. People from
these tendencies who have been noticed are generally admitted on an individual basis,
at the price of a vital repudiation; the fundamental point of debate is always the renun-
ciation of comprehensive demands and the acceptance of a fragmented work, open to
multiple readings. This is what makes the very term avant-garde, which when all is said
and done is wielded by the bourgeoisie, somewhat suspicious and ridiculous.” – Guy
Debord • “In so far as the historical avant-garde movements respond to the devel-
opmental stage of autonomous art epitomized by aestheticism, they are part of mod-
ernism; in so far as they call the institution of art into question, they constitute a break
with modernism. The history of the avant-gardes, each with its own special historical
conditions, arises out of this contradiction.” – Peter Bürger • “The dream of recon-
ciling political vanguardism and avant-gardism in matters of art and the art of living in
a sort of summation of all revolutions – social, sexual, artistic – is undoubtedly a constant
of literary and artistic avant-gardes.” – Pierre Bourdieu • “To write a history of the
avant-garde is already to contain it: obviously within a narrative structure and thus
inevitably within a certain ideological regime, a certain formation of (pre)judgments.
Every history is to some extent an attempt to determine (to comprehend and to control)
the avant-garde’s currency, its demise, or its survival today.” – Paul Mann • “Avant-
garde art has become the official art of our time. It occupies this place because, like any
official art, it is ideologically useful. But to be so used, its meaning must be constantly
and carefully mediated.” – Carol Duncan • “The ‘time’ of the cultural avant-garde
is not the same as that of the vanguard party. These artists’ practices interrupted the
continuity of perceptions and estranged the familiar, severing historical tradition
through the force of their fantasy.” – Susan Buck-Morss • “The encounter between
Leninist politics and modernist art (exemplified in the fantasy of Lenin meeting
Dadaists in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich) cannot structurally take place; more radi-
cally, revolutionary politics and revolutionary art move in different temporalities –
although they are linked, they are two sides of the same phenomenon which, precisely
as two sides, can never meet.” – Slavoj Žižek •
iv
Marc James Léger This Is Not an Introduction Adrian Piper Political Art and the
Paradigm of Innovation Andrea Fraser From the Critique of Institutions to an
Institution of Critique David Tomas Dead End, Sophisticated Endgame Strategy,
or a Third Way? Institutional Critique’s Academic Paradoxes and Their Consequences
for the Development of Post-Avant-Garde Practices Catherine LescarbeauFactures
Hal Foster Precarious Laura Mulvey Mary Kelly: An Aesthetic of Temporality
Bruce LaBruceDon’t Get Your Rosaries in a Bunch Santiago Sierra 300 PEOPLE
Derek Horton Richard Kostelanetz and Michael Butterworth in Conversation
Christine Wertheim The Poetics of Late Capital: Or, How Might ‘Avantgarde’
Poetry Be Thought of Today? Lyn Hejinian Avant Garde in Progress: An Allegory
Marjorie Perloff The Madness of the Unexpected Wu Ming 2 How to Tell a
Revolution from Everything Else Nikolaus Müller-Schöll Poverty of Experience:
Performance Practices After the Fall Rabih MrouéSpread Your Legs Judith Malina
Political Theatre, Theatrical Politics: Epic Theatre in the 21st Century Moe Angelos
The Avant Garde is Present Bill Brown It Was Only Just a Stage The Errorist
International Errorist Kabaret Jonas Mekas My Definition of Avant Garde
Thomas Elsaesser The Politics and Poetics of Obsolescence Alexander Kluge and
Oskar NegtCloser to the Concrete Situations Travis Wilkerson Creative Agitation
Evan MauroThe Death and Life of the Avant Garde: Or, Modernism and Biopolitics
Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen The Self-Destruction of the Avant Garde Gene Ray
Towards a Critical Art Theory John Roberts Revolutionary Pathos, Negation, and
the Suspensive Avant Garde Zanny Begg and Dmitry Vilensky On the Possibility
of Avant-Garde Compositions in Contemporary Art Owen Hatherley A High-
Performance Contemporary Life Process: Parametricism as a Neoliberal Avant Garde
Michael Webb Le Devant Garde Mitchell Joachim Hackerspace in Synthetic
Biological Design: Education and the Integration of Informal Collaborative Spaces
ffoorr MMaakkeerrss BBeeaattrriizz CCoolloommiinnaa LLiittttllee MMaaggaazziinneess,: SSmmaallll UUttooppiiaa BBoorriiss GGrrooyyss TThhee
Russian Avant Garde Revisited Vitaly KomarAvant Garde, Sots-Art and Conceptual
Eclecticism Victor Tupitsyn Factography of Resistance Gregory Sholette and
Krzysztof Wodiczko Liberate the Avant Garde? Marc James Léger Refining Our
Doublethink: An Interview with Critical Art Ensemble BAVO Why Contemporary
Artists Are Not Fascist Enough Alexei Monroe Sponsored by Self-Management?
Re-Constructing the Context and Consequences of Laibach’s Monumental Retro-
Avant-Garde Jean-Hervé Péron Art Is an Error Chris Cutler Thoughts on Music
and the Avant Garde: Considerations on a Term and Its Public Use Charles Gaines
Manifestos Jason Robinson Playing Regular: The Jazz Avant Garde Sara Marcus
Notes on Future Perfect Cosey Fanni TuttiThe Avant Garde Subsumed in a Tangled
Web Thanos Chrysakis Asunder Ray Kim Cascone The Avant Garde as
Aeromancy Marc CourouxTowards Indisposition Thérèse MastroiacovoArt Now
(2005 to present) Chrysi Papaioannou In a Critical Condition Bill Dane Acheter.
révolutionnaires d’avant-garde babioles plus vite possible.
v

This Is Not an Introduction
Marc James Léger
The Idea of the Avant Gardeis premised on the assumption mises with the external forms of biopower contribute to
that the concept of the avant garde has a particular pur- the ageing of the avant garde. In this process, there is a
chase on our thinking in these times of global political cri- contradictory double movement in which the classification
sis. The idea for the book emerged as a displacement of a of older work brings it into the orbit of younger people
previous wish I had, which was to organize a cultural festi- who rediscover those products once they are out of fashion
val dedicated to avant-garde cultural expression and poli- and access its rarity, renewing potentially with its heretical
tics. The city of Montreal where I live hosts countless strategies. The new avant garde, Bourdieu says, will access
cultural festivals and has a regular roster of challenging that position by invoking a return to its purity, obscurity
artistic presentations. On the whole, however, the spectac- and even the poverty of its beginnings, against orthodoxy.
ular nature of cultural events makes of art production a
keystone to tourism and populist entertainment. As global In conceiving this project my goal was to create a forum in
capitalism and post-welfare state governments work to which contemporary views on the avant garde idea could
administer and/or censor the various forms of radical cul- mix and mingle, clash, conspire and inspire. For this to
tural practice, critical thinking, autonomous production happen I didn’t think it would be necessary for me to put
and progressive ideologization are typically earmarked for forward my own version of the conditions of possibility for
budget cuts or some other kind of rightist pressure. In this avant-garde praxis.2It seemed to me, rather, that a collec-
context, cultural production depends on and facilitates the tion of writings and works by some of the most respected
extension of neoliberal control. practitioners and astute commentators on matters avant
garde would create its own horizon of meanings. In the
When I started this project, it seemed to me that in this process of preparing the manuscript, however, I did select
era of disaster capitalism it is all the more vital to address one or two ideas that I thought could serve as a preamble.
the interest, pleasure and radical potential of the avant These are derived from one of the first prominent books
garde. Rather than accept the postmodern attitude that on the subject, Renato Poggioli’s The Theory of the Avant
considers all talk of avant-gardism as so much canonical Garde.3 The first historical reference that Poggioli gives
boilerplate, or as business marketing, I thought to conceive for the idea of the avant garde comes from De la mission de
a project that would facilitate a cross-generational trans- l’art et du rôle des artistes by Gabriel-Désiré Laverdant.
mission of ideas that have little to do with creative innova- Writing before the 1848 Revolution, the French Fourierist
tion, nor with any artist’s or art movement’s apotheosis, but argued that art has a mission of social reform and that it
that instead thinks critically about what we do as artists and can agitate for change through the production of revolu-
theorists. In The Rules of Art, the French sociologist Pierre tionary propaganda. Writing in 1960s U.S.A., in the con-
Bourdieu argued that struggles over what is important in text of the Cold War, Poggioli attempted to bring the
aarrtt aanndd ccuultluturree i sa dree tedremteirnmedin beyd sbany cstaionncsti oountss ioduet tshidee f itehlde anti-traditional tradition of the avant garde up to date by
ofife ladr to, f oafrtte, no frteelna treedl attoe dt htoe tshtreu sgtgruleg gfoler froerw raerwdas,r dsso,m soem oef considering how it manages to live and work in the present,
tohf etmhe pmo lpitoicliatli.c1alI.n1 tIhni st hsiesn sseen tshee t vhael uvea loufe aorft aisr tc oisn csiodnesriedd- how it can reconcile itself to the culture of the times by
elersesd i nle tses rimn st eorfm itss oinf tietsr ninalt esrtnruacl tsutrrue ctthuarne itnh atner imn st eorfm wsh oatf collaborating with parts of the public.4Political changes in
wit hdaote ist dino etsh ien w thoer lwd.o rAlvda. nAtv-agnatr-dgea rwdoe rwko, rIk w, Io wulodu aldr gaurge,u eis, society lead to a corresponding change in the kinds of
iws owrok rtkh taht aits ics ocnocnecrenrende df ifirsrts ta anndd f oforreemmoosstt wwiitthh hhooww aarrtt publics that exist. Poggioli distinguished in this regard an
interacts with the world around it, how it contributes to art that is made for an intelligentsia and an art that creates
society and how its own immanent unfolding is designed a public for itself—an art for an intellectual elite.
to interact with outside forces. Much cultural production
today is shaped by a biopolitics that ideologically construes Poggioli argues that the concept of the intelligentsia comes
all creative and knowledge production in terms of capital ffrroomm nniinneetteeeenntthh--cceennttuurryy RRuussssiiaa.. SSuucchh iinntteelllleeccttuuaallss tteennddeedd
accumulation. In this context, the radical ambition of thoa vhea vloew loewr-ecrla-cssla bsas cbkagcrkogurnodusn.d Ts.h Te haeim a iomf tohfe t h“ien “teinllteecltleuca-l
avant-garde work is substituted for various forms of net- pturaoll eptraorlieatta,r”i aotr,” ionrt einlltieglelingtesniat,s iha,e h sea syasy, sw, wasa st too mmooddeerrnniizsee
worked practice that make cultural production a matter of and radicalize a society of workers and peasants. While the
participation and life styling. Those who make compro- “historical” avant gardes may have identified with the goals
1