The longevity of the avant-garde : a history of (avant-garde) theory

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The avant-garde paradigm is fundamental to the art and literature of the 20th century. Nonetheless, one searches in vain for a comprehensive study – after Bürger’s Theory of the avant-garde (1974) and Mann’s Theory-Death of the Avant-Garde (1991) – that analyses the theory of the avant-garde theory in historical and current constellations and articulations. Since the avant-garde lives on, this book analyses the avant-garde’s history of theory, beginning with the historical avant-gardes and ending with the ArtActivism of the “second avant-garde”. The analysis is centred on conceptualisations of the Imaginary as well as on one specific habit, thus providing a basis for the discussion of the lasting appeal of the notion of avant-garde. This study innovates in several regards: - It is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between the political-social and the literary-artistic avant-gardes. - Accordingly, it takes the cultural and social contexts of the respective avant-garde-movements and of their theoretical outlines into account. Considering the historical avant-gardes, these contexts are nationalism (italian futurism), exile (Dada), revolution (futurists/constructivists), european networks (Bauhaus) as well as psychoanalysis (surrealism). - For the first time, it introduces the notion of the “second avant-garde”, which accomodates recent medial and technical developments and the social-artistic phenomenon of ArtActivism. - It focuses on the relocation of the Parisian centre to New York. While literature is the prevailing medium in the first half of the century, the US neo-avant-gardes induce a conversion to the visual arts, with the consequence of a greater significance of the market. - Due to the broad range of literary and medial forms used up by the avant-garde a unified theory of avant-garde is replaced by theoretical dynamics based on concepts. This book differentiates between historical-social concepts (Bürger, Bourdieu) and concepts from systems theory (Luhmann) as well as between concepts from the neo-avant-garde (poststructuralist and postmodern deconstruction of originality, deferred action) and from the Second avant-garde. - In order to analyse the dynamics between the concepts, this study draws on Castoriadis’s ontology of heterogeneity, especially on his “radical Imaginary”. The conclusion (“What is an avant-garde now?”) draws on seminal hypotheses, such as the Theory-death of the avant-garde, its longevity as a ghost, or the very idea of an avant-garde, to discuss a crucial question: Does the project avant-garde still play a role in the debates that are concerned with the polycentric global and postcolonial space of an ArtActive avant-garde? This question is important, as the project avant-garde itself puts questions to literature and art that have not (yet) received an answer. Therefore, they challenge art and literature time and time again.