Marta Figlerowicz
Publicists, Manifesto Pushers, Propagandists | What Happened to the Avant-Garde?
Marta Figlerowicz
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...
History Is a Merry-Go-Round
Marta Figlerowicz
One cannot think about the avant-garde without committing oneself to a theory of history. The term “avant-garde” was first applied to art in the early nineteenth century amid the euphoria of Europe’s accelerating technological and cultural domination over the rest of the globe. It became particularly associated with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modernism, when European narratives of historical progress — from both the right and the left — pointed...
