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The Existence Or Non-Existence of a Contemporary Avant-Garde

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THE EXISTENCE OR NON-EXISTENCE OF A CONTEMPORARY AVANT-GARDE A comparative research on historical avant-garde, neo avant-garde and contemporary art practices. Student: Claire Hoogakker Student number: 10246703 Supervisor: Dr. Gregor Langfeld Second reader: Dr. Miriam van Rijsingen Date: 13 July 2016 Amount of words: 21.313 MA Thesis Art History: Modern and Contemporary Art University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Art always was, and is, a force of protest of the humane against the pressure of domineering institutions … no less than it reflects their substance. - Theodor W. Adorno, Theses Upon Art and Religion Today, 1945. ! 1! Table of Contents Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 4 - 6 Theoretical Framework 6 - 7 Chapter 1: The Praxis of Life 8 - 23 The Historical Avant-Garde and The Praxis of Life 10 - 13 The Neo Avant-Garde and The Praxis of Life 13 - 17 Contemporary Artists and The Praxis of Life 18 - 23 Chapter 2: Medium Specificity 24 - 35 The Historical Avant-Garde and Medium Specificity 26 - 29 The Neo Avant-Garde and Medium Specificity 29 - 32 Contemporary Artists and Medium Specificity 32 - 35 Chapter 3: Institutional Critique 36 - 51 The Historical Avant-Garde and Institutional Critique 38 - 41 Neo Avant-Garde and Institutional Critique 41 - 46 Contemporary Artists and Institutional Critique 46 - 51 Conclusion 52 - 55 Bibliography 56 - 61 Lists of Images 62 - 106 Chapter 1: List of Images 62 - 77 Chapter 2: List of Images 78 - 93 Chapter 3: List of Images 94 - 106 ! 2! Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Dr. Gregor Langfeld for his time, his generous feedback and advice but most of all, for his trust in me and in this thesis. Besides, his course Thinking Modern Art: Modernism and Its Institutions and other courses given by Dr. Gregor Langfeld have proven to be of key importance for this research. Secondly, I very much appreciate Dr. Johan Hartle’s way of teaching. His interesting course Art as Institution and Its Critique inspired me to write a paper on the subject of the possible existence of a contemporary avant-garde, which I eventually used as a starting point for this thesis. Thirdly, I would like to thank Dr. Miriam van Rijsingen for taking the time to be the second reader of this thesis and for expressing her interest in the subject of this thesis. Last but certainly not least, I want to express my gratitude towards my family, with in particular my grandparents Els and Willem Schrader, my mother Saskia Schrader, my uncle and aunt Reinier and Annemieke Schrader and my brothers Steyn and Lars Hoogakker, for always supporting me in my choice of study and for making my academic career possible. Introduction The avant-garde1 can be defined as ‘a group active in the invention and application of new techniques in a given field, especially in the arts, whose works are unorthodox and experimental’.2 If the avant-garde is defined in these terms, the logical conclusion would be to assume that at any given place and time, there would have been and there would be an avant- garde in some way. Since the emergence of the historical avant-garde3 at the beginning of the 20th century, there has always been a certain artist or movement that has strived to break boundaries and extend the limits of the institution of art and experimented with new techniques; all characteristics of ‘the avant-garde’. However, art historians, writers and critics mostly refer to the historical avant-garde and the neo avant-garde when speaking of a certain avant-garde, as if there has never been a subsequent avant-garde. But is this really the case?4 As the German literary scholar Peter Bürger states in his Theory of the Avant-garde, the historical avant-garde movements that emerged in the beginning of the 20th century in Europe can be defined as an attack on the status of art in bourgeois society. What is negated by these movements is art as an institution that is dissociated with the praxis of life. The aim of these movements was to intermingle art and the praxis of life.5 The historical avant-gardes wanted a certain ‘sublation’, or ‘Aufhebung’ in Hegelian terms, of art, roughly translated as ‘elevation’ or ‘detachment’ of art. The historical avant-garde did not want to destroy art, but rather, detach art from its seclusion in bourgeois society and transfer art to the praxis of life. Subsequently, after the Second World War, neo avant-garde movements emerged. Hal Foster defines the neo avant-garde as a “loose grouping of North American and Western European artists of the 1950s and ‘60s who reprised and revised such avant-garde devices of the 1910s and ‘20s as collage and assemblage, the readymade and the grid, monochrome painting and constructed sculpture”.6 As Foster states, “In post-war art, to pose the question of repetition is to pose the question of the neo avant-garde”.7 In other words, the neo avant-garde repeated previous historical avant-garde practices. In this case, the definition of the avant-garde as a group active in the invention and application of new techniques is not applicable to the neo avant-garde. However, the movement was still described as (neo) avant-garde. Why and how did the neo avant-garde get defined as avant-garde, when they were sometimes solely repeating historical avant-garde practices? Why are contemporary artists who are repeating historical or !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 In French, avant-garde means front- or advance guard or vanguard. 2 ‘Avant-garde’. The Free Dictionary. 2011. 13 December 2014 <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/avant-garde> 3 The historical avant-gardes are considered to be the first avant-garde movements in history that emerged during and after World War I. Peter Bürger takes Dada and Surrealism in particular as paradigmatic of the historical avant-garde. 4 Hoogakker, Claire. Unpublished paper ‘The Existence or Non-Existence of a Certain Contemporary Avant-Garde’ for the course Art as Institution and Its Critique. Amsterdam: The University of Amsterdam, 2014: 6. 5 Bürger, Peter. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1984: 49-50. 6 Foster, Hal. “What’s Neo About The Neo Avant-garde?”. October. Vol. 70. (Autumn, 1994): 5. 7 Ibid. ! 4! neo avant-garde practices, or inventing and applying new techniques in a given field, rarely referred to as avant-garde?8 In contemporary art, many artists and artist groups have been engaged with intermingling their art with the praxis of life and breaking and challenging the boundaries of the institution of art. These artists may have used existing historical avant-garde or neo avant-garde practices to accomplish this goal, but they also experimented and broke boundaries. The practices and means may have changed, but their main aims often have not. So, how did it come then, that there is not such a term as a ‘contemporary avant-garde’? Are all kinds of art accepted nowadays and sometimes even included in the institution of art, which could mean that therefore, this art no longer challenges or questions the boundaries of the institution of art? If one of the preconditions for a movement to be called ‘avant-garde’ is to challenge and question the institution of art rather than being included in these institutions, all avant-garde movements have failed in the end. After all, the historical avant-garde as well as the neo avant-garde movements have been institutionalised eventually.9 Contemporary art is also often perceived as shocking or provoking when it is first exhibited. However, the institution of art is ever changing and adapting to the art that is being made at the time. There is an interplay between the institution of art and the artists in this field. It seems as if there are no fixed boundaries and rules in the contemporary world of art.10 Each chapter of this thesis corresponds to a different avant-garde practice, technique and/or approach. In each chapter, I will compare the historical avant-garde, neo avant-garde and contemporary art practices to determine how avant-garde movements have developed over the last century, and speculate if there is such a thing as a ‘contemporary avant-garde’. Due to the complexity and broadness of this subject, I have chosen to limit this research to western artists, working and living in Europe and the United States. I will make a few exceptions for artists who have been living and working in Europe and the United States for a long time and who take part in the international discourse of the western art world. In the first chapter, I will focus on artists who were or are intermingling art and the praxis of life in order to make art more accessible for the average public and to detach art from its seclusion in bourgeois society. As explained before, this was prevalent in historical avant- garde practices and an important motivation and aim for these artists. However, intermingling art and the praxis of life was still significantly present in neo avant-garde practices. Is it still an important and recurring theme in contemporary art? I will examine the ways in which the historical and neo avant-garde and contemporary artists dealt with or are dealing with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 Hoogakker, Claire. Unpublished paper ‘The Existence or Non-Existence of a Certain Contemporary Avant-Garde’ for the course Art as Institution and Its Critique. Amsterdam: The University of Amsterdam, 2014: 6. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. ! 5! intermingling art and the praxis of life. In chapter two, I will examine the subject of the interrogation of medium specificity, a term invented and popularised by the American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909 – 1994).
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