How do the last partisans of the avant-garde conceive of a critique that might survive the loss of the project of emancipation and the collapse of utopias?

Introduction

At the end of his essay ‘the politics of the avant-garde’, Raymond Williams declares with particular regard to modernism, “There is still much to learn from the complexities of its vigorous and dazzling development”1. It is in that spirit this essay is constructed.
Initially, this essay will briefly outline the modernist movement and the established links with the ‘project of emancipation’ that were central to it. The essay will then formulate another characteristic of the avant-garde movement, namely the spirit of opposition. This spirit as such was formed from the use of militaristic or violent language that will form the basis for chapter three. The condition of avant-garde art as a cultural commodity will be discussed in Chapter four, with particular attention given to the celebrated work of the modernist critic, Clement Greenberg. For symmetry, chapter five will consider the notion of opposition to the avant-garde itself. In chapter six, any inherent contradictions within the avant-garde movement will be offered up for discussion. Chapter seven will focus on the concept of the marginalised individual from within the avant-garde movement and culture as a whole. Chapter eight will discuss the possibility of avant-garde principles surviving within contemporary arts education. It is in that vein that chapter nine continues to discuss the downfall of modernism, with Marcel Duchamp as a central participant. Closing remarks, regarding the nature of this essay will feature in chapter ten.


1.What was modernism?

The intention of this essay is to present modernism as a movement that has passed. Although this period is regularly referred to as high-modernism, locating an actual genesis and maintaining a progressive cohesion through the early decades of the 20th century can be laborious and overtly counter-productive.
However celebratory certain assumptions may appear regarding historical modernism. On no account will an expression of ‘re-modernism’ be established. If what is absent from contemporary art is the concept of the avant-garde, It is paramount that in no form will the avant-garde be expressed as a ready-made solution to satisfy this absence. The natural inclination to subvert the modernist myth of rejecting previous aesthetic norms to become, through negation, a jingoistic celebration of ‘out with the new and in with the old shall not be pursued, at least earnestly. – The re-appropriation of established themes is not to be sought after. Indeed, the old relics from the modernist epoch are not to be varnished up and sanded down as new.

This temptation to reduce the terms used to characterise the affects of modern art and the avant-garde is possibly due to the confusing nature of modernism itself. This is possibly the result of what Raymond Williams established as a phenomena of rapidly succeeding ‘Self-consciously named and self-naming groups’2. However much these individual movements claimed supremacy, for the intended direction of art, over the preceding movements, the over-arching identification with the more general concept of the avant-garde was critical. In terms of language, the very notion of the term avant-garde, or vanguard is interesting. These themes shall be re-established in chapter three.
Such a rapid succession of notions regarding art brought forward the appendage of the ‘ism’ to the practices and products of artists, whether they were for example that of cubism, futurism or Dadaism. However, rather than resort to the temptation of generalising these movements under an all purpose banner, it is necessary to refer to Williams once more for an interesting distinction between the artists of earlier modernism (modernists) and the succeeding artists. (The avant-garde.) Williams illuminates the first group, the modernists as ‘radically innovative groupings seeking to provide their own facilities of production, distribution and publicity’3, this group appear to have desired a certain amount of autonomy separate from that provided by the established art market. Continuing this theme of separation, the avant-garde is described as a ‘fully oppositional…newly militant movement.’4
After the First World War, following this newly militaristic agenda, movements found a strong attraction to concepts of anarchism and nihilism. The nurturing of such oppositional attitudes and practices occurred primarily in the great imperial capitals across Europe. Paris, Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersberg. The attraction of artists to the imperial centres of mainland Europe was due to the centralisation of national industrial power, the inner sanctum of the state and the institutions surrounding the art academy.

The surviving relic of the avant-garde is not limited solely to the objects produced in the period. A certain understanding of the intentions for art and the world in general must be brought forward. The previously stated jingoism of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ is not only relevant when applied to the artwork of the period, in isolation, but perhaps also the attitude, or the politics of the avant-garde. If the avant-garde is primarily understood to be what is absent from contemporary art, then this is not simply an absence of an attitude towards aesthetics, but additionally, an absence of attitude towards ethics.

2.The spirit of opposition and the avant-garde

According to Clement Greenberg, what made the avant-garde such a radical proposition in western bourgeois culture following the turn of the 20th century was a ‘superior consciousness of history’5. In the newly industrialised centres of Europe, a sense of criticism was emerging in society.
The artistic intentions of the avant-garde were to formulate new art for a newly emerging understanding of industrialised society. An art of a higher order, as it were. This was indeed no small task, as Clement Greenberg illustrates,
.
“The avant-garde artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms. So that it cannot be reduced by anything other than itself” 6

The rejection of traditional forms, successively over a period at the beginning of the 20th century was intended to frankly, push the boundaries of what could or could not be received as art. Accepting that the concerns of the avant-garde were not only aesthetic, but also ethical it follows that the stated intentions for a new art be understood as parallel to their intentions for a new society. In literature for example around this period, a new spirit of utopian writing – a fusion of theology and political speculation – emerged in the work of Huxley’s ‘brave new world’ for example.
An understanding of this spirit stems from the Marxist critique of labour in relation to that of the artists. This understanding emerges from the notion that if all products are commodities, bought and sold not for their use-value but for their exchange-value, in other words; products sold simply for profit. The artist can be characterised as a worker who produces a product. Walter Benjamin outlines this link in his essay ‘The Author as producer’, whereby the exploited artist, who is at the mercy of bourgeois taste should align himself at least analogously with the plight of the exploited worker. Indeed it is through an understanding of this formulation, of the identification of the bourgeoisie as the agents of capitalism, which became the source of critique for the working class, the socialists and the anarchists. The formulation is based in particular the oppression of complex human values for the sake of money and trade. This oppression appears as a great opportunity for artists to join a critical mass of society. Collectively agreeing, in principle at least, to the overthrow of the Bourgeois society.

In his essay ‘Archaeology of Practical Modernism’, Thierry de Duve cites Clement Greenberg’s essay ‘Modernist Painting for an accurate description of the methods employed by the 'cultural producers' of the avant-garde to undermine the established Aesthetic of the time by using ‘the characteristic methods of the discipline to criticise the discipline itself’’7.It is this spirit of critique, this apparently radical rejection of previous aesthetic norms that became a cornerstone of the perception of the avant-garde. These characteristic concerns for the future of the aesthetic were mirrored in the fostering of utopian ideals. It was this, perhaps convenient marriage of principles that became central intentions. Avant-garde was at its most critical when aesthetic concerns were aligned ethical ideals. Conceptions of the emancipation of humanity became central to the concerns of the avant-garde. Taking up this tenet is Thierry de Duve who claims that when a ‘critical function is active in the work…- it prompts me to activate a similar critical function’8. He continues by paraphrasing Kant to define critical function as “something that allows the imagination to spread over a multitude of kindred presentations that arouse more that can be expressed in a concept determined by words”9. In an attempt to defend the avant-garde against those debunking it upon qualitative grounds he claims that quality in an artwork is dependant on the sensing of a critical function.





3.The Language of the avant-garde

“In this great undertaking the artists, the men of imagination shall lead the march”
– Saint Simon

Whether or not the avant-garde artists suffered from what Dan Fox describes as ‘delusions of Grandeur’10 to achieve social as well as aesthetic parity is impossible to assess at this juncture. Although, an example taken from the early period of modernism, to that of Gustav Courbet, catches perfectly the transition from artists as men of art, to men of action:

“The pistol shots that are fired against tradition, even when a barrel of the pistol is a paintbrush, disturb the tranquillity of those who like their fingers over paintings, who lick their fingers over ministers”11
What does appear clear is that the artists of the avant-garde period deemed it necessary to talk of radical political change. Groups such as the Futurists appeared resolute in their idealistic belief that artists and the art could bring about social change, Primarily through talk of destruction of the established social order.
From analysing the way that the avant-garde described their war, or cultural war as it were, was not simply limited to the realm of aesthetics. There existed a violent edge to many of their maxims. Self-proclamation was common. Echoing the sentiments of Saint Simon – “It is the strong and powerful who now carry the seeds of the future”12. Indeed, the avant-garde is said to have been at the vanguard of social change. Aggressive, military language was used. It was deemed necessary for tradition to be ‘destroyed’, taboos were destined to be ‘violated’; existing institutions were thought of as being under ‘attack’. The avant-garde were self-proclaimed ‘agents of negation’ and were thought to have highly reasoned ‘artistic strategies. Through this re-appropriated language of war the fully oppositional avant-garde saw itself as a breakthrough to the future. A future where a celebratory mood takes hold;

“We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure and by Riot” 13

Although the above mantra of the futurists displays a certain empathy with the Marxist doctrine of the period, as Raymond Williams points out in his essay ‘politics of the avant-garde’, the link between art and the social cause was to necessarily totally transparent. The concept of ‘great crowds excited by work’ appears inconsistent with the values and wishes of the socialists. Work, for the working class was an oppressive force, and not necessarily a concept to get excited through. The intentions of the futurists are clear however. The demonstrated a real sense of collective politicised spirit, the artist was to be included in the ‘grand narrative’ as Lyotard would use to illustrate the ideology of the epoch.

“Take up your pick axes, your axes, and hammers and wreck, wreck the venerable cities pitilessly” 13

Following another example of the Futurists vocal invitations, no attempt to understand a scientific approach towards socialism was made. The expression is that of encouraged violence. The praxis is that of destruction – aimed at the very cities that the oppositional avant-garde required for their efforts to be taken seriously. – A useful identification of the hammer, a symbol of the workers tool is implied in the previous quote above. It is clear whom the futurists are addressing.

‘Come on, set fire to the library shelves. Turn aside the canals to flood the museums’ 14

Here, the insistence upon violent destruction taken up by the working is aimed at knowledge. The very literature that surrounded the avant-garde in western bourgeois culture is deemed unnecessary, ripe for removal. What these destroyed shelves are to be filled with is not discussed. It is safe to assume that the only article worthy of redemption was the futurist manifesto itself. – Propaganda for maintaining the voice of destruction against that which the futurists were at once silently grateful for, and vociferously opposed to.
If only through vociferous language and identification with marginalised social causes. Parallels between the project of the socialist and the radical political left were strengthened through implied language; the intentions of the new breed of social artist are not at all obscured. Artists of the time appear to hold great faith in the promise of utopia and are instigated in the broadening appeal of the project of emancipation. The belief that as Thierry de Duve proclaims, “progress will align reality with the ideal”15 Does not appear out of step with the appetites of the socialists, or the futurists.
The oft-stated end result of such a project, that of the proletarian dictatorship, throw the best efforts and grand intentions of the avant-garde, has not materialised. All attempts to change the nature of man, and his relationship with the modern world appear deficient.




4. Avant-garde as Kitsch

“Only when he becomes dissatisfied with the social order they administer does he begin to criticise their culture”16

In a 2005 Frieze magazine Article entitled ‘Art is changing – into what?’ Dan Fox illustrates an interesting dichotomy between ‘careerism and self criticality’ in art. To borrow Fox’s terminology, the careerist in his article is a post-graduate Art Student who has produced work inspired by “the striking graphic qualities of Russian Constructivism” 17. This appears quite an intriguing concept for Fox. He asks the student “What was it about art and its social function that caught her imagination?”18. It is safe to assume that Fox is hoping for an engaging discussion here about the political intentions of the Russian avant-garde. Given this opportunity, Fox implies that perhaps this student would invoke the sentiments of Aaron Scharf, for example, that artists ‘had an important part to play in the building of an egalitarian society.’19 To the clear disappointment of Fox, the student disavows any interest in this theme, indignantly proclaiming ‘I just like the look. I’m not an art historian’20. This blatant refusal for a thorough engagement with the subject matter is clearly disheartening for Fox. But what would an engagement with the subject matter reveal? That constructivism was squarely Utopian? That the constructivists were involved in a fusion of aesthetics and ethics? Or that Ultimately the avant-garde had failed in delivering Utopia. It does seem overly nostalgic to concern oneself with the intentions of previous generations of artists. After all, as Dan Fox explains by intelligently paraphrasing Marx, “it’s hard enough being an artist without having history breathing down your neck”21.
Although Fox is quick to defend the artist who is frankly ignorant to historical influences, and ignorant to of fellow artists, he does broaden the debate into the wider context of culture as a whole. He is wary, naturally, of Art that is ‘drab’ and ‘scholarly’, but he draws our attention to a style over content debate. Fox indicates that the Style of The Russian Constructivists is to be favoured over the political content of the movement. This is an example of how the lack of an avant-garde has been replaced by the old relics that were once radical. Work at the time was deemed successful by how far it had gone to destroy artistic tradition.
In his popular essay ‘avant-garde’ and kitsch’, Clement Greenberg outlines this very idea of the recycling of themes from historical modernism. He expresses it this replacement as ‘a reservoir of accumulated experience. This is what is really meant when it is said that popular ‘art and literature today were once the daring esoteric art and literature of yesterday.’22 it is clear that Greenberg is discussing the replacement of the avant-garde with Kitsch. The concept of Kitsch, discussed by Greenberg, is the remainder of the removal of the avant-garde. Movements like Russian Constructivism become kitsch when they are separated from their primary intentions. The avant-garde of Historical Modernism supplies kitsch with ready-made notions of what Art should be. Indeed, Greenberg again outlines clearly this distinction. – “If the avant-garde imitates the process of Art, kitsch, we now see imitates its effects.” 23
5.Opposition to the avant-garde

“In turbulent years the link between art and politics was not simply a manifesto but a difficult and dangerous practice” 24

Despite the highest of intentions from the avant-garde, the project of emancipation remained just that –a project. Utopia was not heralded in during the early part of the 20th century. Artists appear to have aligned with socialists – and fascists, and used language to assimilate themselves with the cause. But the Futurists did not achieve a future. On the contrary, the very ideologies the avant-garde became affiliated with are now feared and mistrusted. Revolutions, or attempts to change the social order brought terror and the gulag. It appears that the very spirit of utopia has been destroyed by every attempt at revolution, as Frederic Jameson illustrates,

“A great wave of counter-revolutionary historiography designed to ‘prove’ for example that, the French or Russian revolutions accomplished very little save to interrupt, with their mindless bloodshed, a peaceful economic progress already on course and well under way.”25

The avant-garde is understood to have been a barrier towards an egalitarian art. It was elitist, or highbrow, it was art about art that was indigestible and alienating. The claims to a new art of a higher order were dismissed through accusations of ivory tower formalism. Without the avant-garde, art could appear more welcoming, more approachable. The spirit of opposition was exchanged for inclusively and a spirit of relativism. Indeed, What were initially cited as examples of Revolutionary autonomous responses such as the work of Francis Picabia in the 1920s, have been replaced by the work of the same Artist from the 1940s. This revisionist approach towards inclusively extends to the work of the historical avant-garde whose works are held in high esteem by the museums and galleries that were initially the battleground on which the avant-garde fought the established aesthetic order.

“Finally, we must in the future guard against idealising, under the charming words of fantasy, the independent life and free art. These social and mental disorders, these unhealthy passions which irretrievably threw off track more than one talent created by nature to produce vaudevilles or landscapes and not revolutions.” 26






6.The inherent contradiction of the avant-garde


“Eating out of the hand of an elite among the ruling class of that society from which it assumed itself cut off, but to which it has always remained attached by an umbilical cord of gold.”27

One of the most idealistic claims is that made of creativity being inherent in every individual that results in everyone being an artist. (Joseph Beuys). If this were true then the project of emancipation that Thierry de Duve outlines would be unnecessary. In fact, it can be argued that a sense of Utopia would be reached if each human being possessed the same self-determination and autonomy, as Beuys clearly believes they already possess. This is characteristic of the idea of utopia delayed, or unrealised inherent in the idealism of the avant-garde. While is clear to understand and to some extent empathise with the sentiments of Beuys’ statement, if it were actually true then it would have not been needed to be said at all. It is possible that Beuys has escaped complete ridicule, which cannot be said of Gustav Courbet who was described in relation to his vocal political aspirations as “not someone to be refuted, but whom one quotes, in order to pity, he is so ridiculous, or to laugh”

In spite of similar revolutionary sentiments, there exists a distinction between the intentions of the Futurists, who called for the destruction of tradition and the intentions of the Socialists who called for the destruction of the existing social order. This would suggest then that the avant-garde, despite the validation of their intentions through affiliation with the socialists, were not best placed to bring about social change

Indeed, it must be stated that even though the majority of the essay has focused on the link between the avant-garde and the socialists, the facts are not quite as utopian in themselves. Political affiliations of modernism could swing from left to right and while it may appear unsavoury to discuss the positions held by Pound, Yeats and the literary movement in Britain in general, the fact of Utopia having ‘a foot in each camp’ as it were cannot be ignored.
7.The cause of the marginalised individual

Modernism and the avant-garde rejected the social order in favour of more primitive subjects from African and Chinese objects. These ‘folk’ inspirations were seen as exotic, and belonging to the innately creative unformed or untamed mind – the pre rational. Picasso – although these were outside the established traditions, they were re-appropriated traditions from outside the western art world. The primitive objects only received ‘aesthetic value’ when they had been properly re-appropriated by a skilled artist such as Picasso

Even though the subject matter of ‘les mademoiselles…’ for example is in itself a challenge to the dominant fabric of society, by depicting prostitutes in a brothel, the relatively ubiquitous work, It celebrates the notion of a broad humanity by reducing it to the market forces of the art world.. Despite remaining a challenging and radical artwork, the concept of the marginalised individual within this particular work is the ‘bohemian’ existence of the ethnic prostitute. It is this difference that the artist wishes to use to not only challenge the dominant morality, but to celebrate different or alternative ways of life.

The myth of the artist as bohemian collapses under the notion of the artist as perennial outsider as Marcel Duchamp explains,” the painter has become completely integrated with actual society, he is no longer a pariah.” An attempt to portrait the artist as asocial or opposed to dominant social norms appears now at best shallow pretence and at worse thoroughly ignorant of those truly on the margins, for art shall never be made for them.

The concept of the marginalised individual extends to that of those who do not understand culture. For them, kitsch is salvation. Kitsch borrows from avant-garde culture by imitating and faking its sensations Kitsch demands nothing of the individual who has become marginalised without his knowledge. Of the kitsch spectator, kitsch demands nothing except money. ‘Contemplation of and exposure to kitsch do not require any of the individuals time.’ 28

8. Is there such a thing as Autonomous education?

The traditional approach to arts education and the refinement of skill was rejected by modernism. Observing nature was forsaken, so to was the ethos of imitating received masters of the past. In ‘The artist and the academy’, Thierry de Duve characterises the traditional teaching emphasis to be the nurturing of “gift[s] that could neither develop nor express itself outside the rules, conventions and codes provided by the tradition”29. The academic approach to teaching art relied upon the maintenance of tradition. Emphasis was constructed around the formation of a rank, or order whereby artisans could make a reasonable living but were not held in comparative esteem to the traditionalist concept of genius. De Duve states that traditional approach to teaching art was replaced by the approach of modernism. Examples of past excellence lost credibility under modernism, the outside world as object of imitation was inverted inwards. Excellence was judged on achieving the essential quality of a medium. Purity and autonomy were searched for within the medium. The pure qualities of modernist artwork were deemed to be the qualities of the medium themselves. De Duve describes the reduction that occurred vis modernism,

“Instead of exerting their talents relatively fixed conventions, the modernist artist put those conventions themselves to an aesthetic test and, one by one, discarded those by which they no longer felt constrained.”30

The Bauhaus School for example, initially set itself against the old order of imitation, flying the newly woven flag of invention. However succinct this distinction appears, both models of arts education are degenerated beyond all recognition today. Both models have demised, and modernism appears to be bathing in its own critique. An institutional hinterland now exists between the traditional approach of imitation and the modernist concept of invention. Traditional restrictions of rules and conventions exist if only to prevent the exercise from turning into formal escapism en masse.
What was originally cast, as an idealised myth of the avant-garde now appears to be that of stance, a limited viewpoint, capable of simple negation. The failure to reconnect the teaching of modernism with its inherently vocal discourse regarding society results in its appearance today being discredited as a mere contrivance. A stance that was at once old fashioned and irrelevant.



9. What comes after the story of modernism?

We can assume that all possible human feelings and emotions should be included in art. These are to obviously include disgust, ridicule and dissent. However angry the avant-garde appeared against society, a certain proportion of that anger should be reserved, quite rightly in some respects, for Marcel Duchamp. Accusations of aloofness and a stance of overrated silence appear as sharp arrows against the prodigal success of Duchamp. The success of Duchamp, with particular reference to ‘fountain’, appears to have trounced the relative success of Hausmann, Heartfield, Tatlin and Rodchenko. Whilst additionally creating a rationale for the erasure of the art and popular culture debate.

We can take ‘fountain’ an exquisite example as to how both the establishment and the avant-garde can be reconciled. The tradition of the establishment is presented within ‘fountain’ as a subtle critique of the art institution, whilst appealing to the avant-garde notion of ‘anything goes’. The success of Duchamp is to proclaim an object as art by being simultaneously radical and providing a critique of the institution that permits such bravado. His genius is to have a foot in each camp as it were. However, through this symbolic hand that addresses everyone, all definitive rules have gone. The hinterland returns whereby artists can do entirely what they desire or they are to be held to account from within the art world itself. Nobody is sure. All conventions have gone. The traditional social pact between artist and his public has gone. We are left post-Duchamp with a situation where no legitimate idea of who art definitely addresses and who indeed is an artist.




10. Conclusions

The battle has long finished. The museums, contrary to the wishes of Claudio Pissarro have not been destroyed. In fact, if the military terminology is to continue, it could be said that the avant-garde has lost its battle.
In fact, a new battleground has emerged. As Boris Groys reveals in his article ‘the politics of equal aesthetic rights’. The salient battle for the avant-garde should no longer be waged against the museum but against the globalized mass media, for this is where the general public draws their notion of art. The mass media is the largest and most powerful distributor of images; it is more extensive and effective than the art world. However, this would require a new essay altogether.