Other Works by Richard Kostelanetz Fifty Untitled Constructivst Fictions (1991); Constructs Five (1991); Books Authored Flipping (1991); Constructs Six (1991); Two Intervals (1991); Parallel Intervals (1991) The Theatre of Mixed Means (1968); Master Minds (1969); Visual Lan­ guage (1970); In the Beginning (1971); The End of Intelligent Writing (1974); I Articulations/Short Fictions (1974); Recyclings, Volume One (1974); Openings & Closings (1975); Portraits from Memory (1975); Audiotapes Constructs (1975); Numbers: Poems & Stories (1975); Modulations/ Extrapolate/Come Here (1975); Illuminations (1977); One Night Stood Experimental Prose (1976); Openings & Closings (1976); Foreshortenings (1977); Word sand (1978); ConstructsTwo (1978); “The End” Appendix/ & Other Stories (1977); Praying to the Lord (1977, 1981); Asdescent/ “The End” Essentials (1979); Twenties in the Sixties (1979); And So Forth Anacatabasis (1978); Invocations (1981); Seductions (1981); The Gos­ (1979); More Short Fictions (1980); Metamorphosis in the Arts (1980); pels/Die Evangelien (1982); Relationships (1983); The Eight Nights of The Old Poetries and the New (19 81); Reincarnations (1981); Autobiogra­ Hanukah (1983);Two German Horspiel (1983);New York City (1984); phies (1981); Arenas/Fields/Pitches/Turfs (1982); Epiphanies (1983); ASpecial Time (1985); Le Bateau Ivre/The Drunken Boat (1986); Resume American Imaginations (1983); Recyclings (1984); Autobiographicn New (1988); Onomatopoeia (1988); Carnival of the Animals (1988); Ameri­ York Berlin (1986); The Old Fictions and the New (1987); Prose Pieces/ cas’ Game (1988); Kaddish (1990);Ululation (1992); Epiphanies (1982­ Aftertexts (1987); The Grants-Fix(1987); Conversing with Cage (1988); ); More or Less (1988—) On Innovative Music(ian)s (1989); Unfinished Business: An Intellectual Nonhistory (1990); The New Poetries and Some Old (1991); Politics in the African-American Novel (1991); Solos, Duets, Trios, Choruses (1991); On Innovative Art(ist)s (1992); Wordworks: Poems New & Extended Radio Features Selected (1993); Twenty-Five Years After (1993); On Innovative Per­ formance^) (1994) Audio Art (1978); Text-Sound in North America (1981); Horspiel USA: Radio Comedy (1983); Glenn Gould as a Radio Artist (1983); Audio Writing (1984); Audio Comedy Made in America Today (1986); New Books Edited York City Radio (1987); Orson Welles as an Audio Artist (1988); Nor­ man Corwin: Pioniere der US-Radiokunst (1991) On Contemporary Literature (1964,1969);Twelve from the Sixties (1967); The Young American Writers (1967); Beyond Left 8c Right: Radical Thought for Our Times (1968); Possibilities of Poetry (1970); Imaged Words & Worded Images (1970); Moholy-Nagy (1970,1991); John Cage Videotapes (1970, 1991); Social Speculations (1971); Human Alternatives (1971); Fu­ Three Prose Pieces (1975); Openings 8c Closings (1975); Declaration of ture’s Fictions (1971); Seeing Through Shuck (1972); In Youth (1972); Independence (1979); Epiphanies (1980); Partitions (19S6); Video Writ­ Breakthrough Fictioneers (1973); The Edge of Adaptation (1973); Essaying ing (1987); Home Movies Reconsidered (1987); Two Erotic Videotapes Essays (1975); Language & Structure (1975); Younger Critics in North (1988); Americas’ Game (1988); Invocations (1988);The Gospels Abridged America (1976); Esthetics Contemporary (1978, 1989); Assembling As­ (1988); Kinetic Writing (1989); Video Strings (1989); Onomatopoeia sembling (1978); Visual Literature Criticism (1979); Text-Sound Texts (1990); String Two (1990): Kaddish (1990) (1980); The Yale Gertrude Stein (1980); Scenarios (1980); Aural Literature Criticism (1981);The Literature of SoHo (1981); American Writing Today (1981, 1991); The Avant-Garde Tradition in Literature (1982); Gertrude Stein Advanced (1989); Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time Films Produced & Directed (1992); John Cage: Writer (1993); Writings About John Cage (1993) Epiphanies (in German, 1983; in English, 1981-) Books Coauthored & Edited The New American Arts (1965) Films Coproduced & Directed Constructivist Fictions (1978); Ein Verlorenes Berlin (1983); Ett Forlorat Books Cocompiled & Introduced Berlin (1984); A Berlin Lost (1985); Berlin Perdu (19 86); El Berlin Perdido (1987); Berlin Sche-Einena Jother (1988) Assembling (Twelve volumes, 1970-1981) Performance Scripts Holograms Epiphanies (1980); Seductions (1986); Lovings (1991) On Holography (1978); Antitheses (1985); Hidden Meanings (1989) Limited Editions: Books & Prints Retrospective Exhibitions Numbers One (1974); Word Prints (1975); Tabula Rasa (1978); Inexistences (1978); Constructs Three (1991);Intermix(1991); Constructs Four (1991); Wordsand (1978) DICTIONARY OF THE AVANT-GARDES Richard Kostelanetz with contributions by Richard Carlin, Geof Huth, Gerald Janecek, Katy Matheson, H.R. Brittain, John Robert Colombo, Ulrike Michal Dorda, Charles Doria, and Robert Haller a cappella books Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kostelanetz, Richard The dictionary of the avant-gardes / Richard Kostelanetz with assistance from H.R. Brittain . [et. al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 1-55652-202-9 : $16.95 1. Arts, Modern— 20th century—Dictionaries. 2. Avant-garde (Aesthetics)— History— 20th century— Dictionaries. 3. Artists— Biography— Dictionaries. I. Brittain, H.R. II. Title. NX456.K67 1993 700’.9’04— dc20 93-17793 CIP © 1993 by Richard Kostelanetz a cappella books an imprint of Chicago Review Press, Incorporated Editorial offices: P.O. Box 380 Pennington, NJ 08534 Business/sales offices: 814 N. Franklin St. Chicago, IL 60610 For Nicolas Slonimsky Cher maître PREFACE It takes approximately twenty years to make an artistic curiosity out of a modernistic monstrosity, and another twenty to elevate it to a masterpiece. — Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of Musical Invective (1953) M y principal reason for doing a book of this title would be to defend the continuing relevance of the epithet "avant-garde,” which frequently appears in my own critical writing. A second reason is that 1 enJoy reading dictionaries myself and own a goodly number of them; but as my library lacks a dictionary of avant-gardes, the first reader for any book of that title would be myself. A third reason is that I’ve come to think there is only one art, called Art, and thus that dance, literature, etc., are merely academic categories, designed to make tKe history and the material of Art more accessible to beginners. My basic measures of avant-garde work are esthetic innovation and initial unacceptability. Add to this my own taste for art that is extreme, unique, distinct, coherent, witty, technological, and esthetically reso­ nant. (An artist’s courage in the choice of subJect, such as scatology, say, or child abuse, is not avant-garde if the artist’s esthetic is traditional. Nor is the first play by a three-handed dwarf avant-garde by virtue of the peculiarities of its author.) It follows that the most consequential artists, in any medium, are those who make genuine discoveries about the possibilities of art. Chough one often hears about “the death of the avant-garde,” usually from publicists with cemeteries to defend, it is not the purpose of this book to engage in an argument I take to be Talmudic at best. ix x Preface Though most entries feature contemporary avant-garde activities, maJor historical figures, some of whom worked two centuries ago, are acknowledged as well. Though the epithet “avant-garde” is applicable to other cultural domains, they are not covered here. Proclaiming the avant-garde’s death is no less disreputable than the claim, from another corner, of one or another group to represent “the avant-garde” to the exclusion of all others. In this book are entries on individuals representing opposed positions, if not contrary esthetics, both avant-garde. Trained in cultural history, I think I can discern the future from the past; and because I don’t often read newsprint, I can claim an ignorance of, if not resistance to, fashions of many kinds. One principle behind my writing about the avant-garde in one art is an authority gained from familiarity with avant-garde work in other arts. This book is admittedly biased, not only in Judgments but in selec­ tions, because it is impossible to write about the avant-gardes, with any integrity and excellence, without seeming opinionated. (If you don’t like opinions, well, you’re welcome to read the telephone directory.) Be­ cause this book was written not just to be consulted but to be read from beginning to end, it eschews abbreviations that interrupt attention. I w ould have liked to do more entries on avant-garde artists new to the 1980s and 1990s, those born after 1950, who are true heroes at a time when the idea of an esthetic vanguard has been subJected to all sorts of Philistine attack, and apologize now to those individuals, whoever you are, whose names will be featured in future editions. Most of this book was written in several months, drawing mostly upon my memory and sometimes upon earlier reviews and notes that were generally made when I first experienced something. In writing critically about art (or in editing anthologies), I have learned to trust my memory to separate the strongest work from everything else. One reason for so much faith in memory is that it does not lie to me, which is to say that no matter my personal feelings toward the artist, no matter what reviews of his or her work I might have read, no matter what other factors might try to influence me, if 1 cannot remember an artist’s work distinctly,