Meditation for November 26th, 2016
Avant-Garde
Before I delve into this meditation I must define what avant-garde means. It comes from the commandos that went ahead of the army to survey and warn of upcoming dangers. They were the “fore-garde”.
How does this translate to art? These artists are ahead of culture and are coming up with fresh ideas of art and culture.
Dadaists were one of the first major avant-garde groups in the shadow of the First World War. They made strange art because they blamed the mainstream for creating a world that went to war. It was all absurd to them.
Now there is no avant-garde anymore. There is nothing to warn us of the destruction of mainstream culture. There is no one making anything fresh, new, and/or radical.
When people are comfortable and confident in the economic and political world, they rely on what’s established.
People have had become creatively lazy. No one is running ahead and make sure we know the dangers we are facing.
Avant-garde is made fun of or entirely ignored because it isn’t easily digestable. The music isn’t catchy. The literature strains the mind. The art is strange and sometimes entirely too absurd to understand. When people break the rules and reach farther than ever reached for before, we become better humans.
Art has never been less innovative than now. Music halted in the 80s at best, visual art has become graphic design centric, and literature is stuck on the novel. And no one was aware that the world is getting ready to become a very dark place.
Somewhere in the shadows nearest in the corners are people that are still creating noisy, messy, nonsensical things, but you won’t see it or hear it. You will be staring at the world with shock and wondering why it all happened, but there was no scouts relaying warning back to you.
A lot of people have talked about how good the music will be now that the cultural and political world is the way it is, but I think that people are thinking about a kind of punk music or hardcore that has already existed. They aren’t thinking or wanting anything new.
If you want a look-see into what is avant-garde of the past, check out ubuweb.