Lucy Sante
Publicists, Manifesto Pushers, Propagandists | What Happened to the Avant-Garde?
Lucy Sante
It’s commonplace to note that sociopolitical upheaval and artistic experimentation often flourish side by side. But today — despite an alleged “polycrisis” — new modes of cultural production don’t seem to be emerging. Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent George Floyd rebellion, the arts seem stagnant and stubbornly centralized: franchise fare dominates at the box office; literary output is hampered by monopolized publishers; even...
That Moment Barely Survived
Lucy Sante
As soon as I understood the concept of an avant-garde, I wanted to be part of it. That was in the late 1960s, when the border between avant-garde and popular culture was at its most porous. At that point, the term referred less to revolutionary art than to art that flaunted a sense of historical progression. Many if not most of the ideas in play dated back to the 1910s,...
