If I Ever Lose My Faith In You: A Defense of the Avant-Garde

Abstract

When one calls art "avant-garde," they speak of an art which is abrasive not only with its culture, but its time too. We often hear of work being "ahead of its time." If a work is avant-garde in a meaningful way, then there is "nothing like it" until the present moment. The concept of avant-garde intrinsically has an intimacy with time, with the present moment and with the future. Cubism is not avant-garde, but Picasso's work is. A historical style is not avant-garde, but the art works which marked that style's inception are. Why? Because such styles no longer point to the future. So the relationship that avant-garde has to time is that it points to the future. It is no surprise therefore that, in an era where the future is supposedly lost, where neoliberalism has co-opted the progression of history, the avant-garde would seem to be an artifact of a distant past. It is no surprise that the art world would call those interested in a contemporary avant-garde "revivalists." But we must always be clear on what exactly this means. What exactly does an "avant-garde revivalist" call for the revival of? They call for the revival of the future.