In what ways did the avant-garde challenge notions of the role of

art in society?

Definition:
Avant-Garde
- New and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature
- Possibly characterized by non-traditional methods, aesthetic innovation and
initial unacceptability
- May offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.

Thus, by definition, anything labelled Avant-Garde will challenge ideas of

art.

Previous to 1900s, notions of visual art were broadly expressed as

representations of reality, and employing the idea of the canvas as a
window (for paintings).

Since the 1900s, there has been a growing change in how artists approach
the process of making art and in pictorial language.

David Cottington: From 1913 onwards, abstraction imposed itself

as the new language of 20th Century art

Fauvism & Expressionism: The goal of subjectivity, and individuality. Strove

towards the radical goal of separating colour from its descriptive,
representational purpose and allowing it to exist on the canvas as an
independent element. Emotional expression in colour. Garish colours, bold
brushwork, growing flattening of planes a demonstration of the materials
self-awareness but still rooted in representation. Esp. Expressionism
highlighting the alienation of the city.

Cubism: The growing abstraction from nature and distancing from

representation can be seen, where total perception defies the previously
established rules of space and perspective. As a response to the chaos of
war, there was a tendency among many French artists to pull back from
radical experimentation; this inclination was not unique to Cubism.

Futurism and Vorticism: Machinist and active style, organic figures depicted
with a metallic external. Glorified modernity, nationalistic, aimed to liberate
Italy from its past.

Suprematism: Inspired by rational inquiry, pushed abstraction in search of

the Zero degree of painting at which their work would cease to be art.
The irreducible characteristics of the medium.
Dada: First conceptual art movement invoking art as performance,
art as life, and art as result of audience participation. Forced
questions about the extent of artistic creativity and the overall
definition of art.

De Stijl: Reaction to WW1. Art as social and spiritual redemption a universal

visual style for a new world. Mondrian pushes abstraction from nature to
PURE abstraction, with the creation of his Compositions simplifying his
method of pictorial communication to vertical, horizontal lines, and primary
colours. Theo van Doesburg De Stijl advocates fusion of form and function
in all sectors of art.

Constructivism: Stressed physical characteristics of materials, vs. symbolic

associations. Embraced dynamism of modern world, and also developed
ideas with potential for mass production. But also crucial was the desire to
develop a new form of art more appropriate to the democratic and
modernizing goals of the Russian Revolution.

Bauhaus: Put equal store in form and function and promoted a

comprehensive and multi-disciplined approach to the arts.

Surrealism: Shared Dadas anarchic rejection of bourgeois values,

and called for a revolution of the mind. Bypass reason by accessing
their unconscious via automatism or dreams.
Intended to jolt viewers out of their comfortable notions of reality.

Each search for a new method of pictorial communication that responds and
reacts to the social change that they are experiencing:

Capitalism, industrialisation and the obsession with efficiency that machinery

lends, creates a new sense of rationality and detachment, that invite both
positive and negative reactions from the various movements.

What remains constant, however, is the use of art as a means of expressing

ideas that challenge the political and social sphere of the artists society.

Cottington:

Avante-garde refers to many movements, but can be split into pre-war

generation, and post-war generation, united by the alternative and
oppositional character of their arts.

Pre-war:
- Without a guiding sense of purpose or of what it was that was
being built
- Shared a commitment to technical and formal experimentation
 - Took for granted that art could exist autonomously from wider
social forces (more freedom)
Post-War
- Shaped by profound political, social and economic changes
from the war
- Shared a universal rejection of the values and policies that led
to war.
-

2 Movements:

Dadaism and Surrealism share a call to irrationality in the face of a very

rational society (the machinery referred to above). They reject this
rationality possibly due to its role in contributing to the inventions of
systemised killing weapons that were used in the war. This rejection of
rationality is demonstrated in a call to absurdity, each movement employing
different techniques to attain this end.

Dadaism:
Espousal of the efficiency and rationality of machine production as
a guiding aesthetic principle (Cottington)

- Political comment: Rejection of Capitalism and Bourgeois materialism

- Chance & Randomness (Berlin Dada)
o Duchamp:
A point which I want very much to establish is that the
choice of these readymades was never dictated by
esthetic delectation
Based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the
same time a total absence of good or bad taste
Complete anaesthesia
- Anti-art
- Mocked the spectator

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917

An ordinary object, can be elevated to the dignity of a work of

art by the mere choice of an artist.

Challenges the definition of art itself:

- Readymade: Art that is not made, instead, it is found.
- Traditionally, Art should reflect an artists skills
- Abandoning the physical craft of painting/sculpting for readymades
and assembly-line items (industrial logic)
 - Object taken out of its rational context, and placed with the intention
of challenging ones preconceived beliefs.
- The role of art, instead of being preoccupied with the craft and process
of making itself, is now preoccupied with asking questions. From the
retinal to the intellectual
- Challenges the idea that beauty is a defining characteristic of art -
Plato
- The key to understanding is
o his sentence?
instead of describing the objectwas meant to carry the
mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal
Art is a habit-forming drug

Hannah Hch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last
Weimar Beer Belly

Challenges the role of art

Issue w/ Dada While enthusiastic, it was their apparent vagueness as to

just how art might further the revolution, that ultimately rendered their
challenges less effective politically.

Surrealism:
Metaphysical Art: To become truly immortal, a work of art must
escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only
interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the
realms of childhood visions and dreams.