Avant-garde ; from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard") is a French term used in English as a noun or adjective to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.
Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981.
Read more about Avant-garde: Working Definition, Theorising The Avant-garde, Avant-garde and Mainstream Society, Avant-garde Art Movements
Famous quotes containing the word avant-garde:
“Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“An avant-garde man is like an enemy inside a city he is bent on destroying, against which he rebels; for like any system of government, an established form of expression is also a form of oppression. The avant-garde man is the opponent of an existing system.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The avant-garde is now stranded in the past.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)