Margo Jefferson, the NYT's Pulitzer-winning culture critic, has launched a new occasional column dedicated to "avant-garde" art. (I've always loved that term and I'm happy people are bringing it back into fashion.) Jefferson's introductory column is insightful, smart, and, most importantly, she doesn't take herself too seriously. I look forward to the next installment!
When you hear the phrase avant-garde
1)You flip through your intellectual file folder looking for examples (Dada, 12-tone music, modern dance, underground films, the Beats, theater of the absurd, electronic music).
2) You experience a certain dread. (You ask yourself if you are the only one in the gallery not getting the artist's joke, or worry that you can't finish that book said to challenge narrative conventions so boldly.)
3)You rage, "Where's the vision today, the energy?" You think back longingly. Paris, 1913: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes hurl Stravinksy's "Rite of Spring" at a shocked public. New York in the 1940's: Bird, Diz and Monk lead the charge for the music that would be known as bop. The 1960's and 70's: lofts, galleries, parks and churches shelter free jazz, new music and every kind of performance. What does it take to bring artists together to make brave new works?
I've felt each, and I'm about to start writing about the avant-garde in occasional essays and pieces of criticism. Which brings up another question: If an avant-garde is written about in a major newspaper like this one, doesn't that prove that it has moved to the culture's prosperous Midtown?
