Avant-Garde

Avant-Garde emerges out of fine art.


What is art/ what is graphics?
Challenging, innovative, new, progressive.


Today- Avant-Garde is neutralised to the point of being meaningless- used in the terms of being weird, different.


Challenging conventions of what art is.
Anti establishment, anti conventional.
Non conformist.


Mocking the elitism of art, challenging what is art?


'Fauves' Wild Beasts. 
Self taught. Self portrait- person confronting you, challenging colours. Aggressive. To shock, reassess conventions. 


Content over style.


Experimental, unconventional. Personal creative identity- non conformist character.
Innovation, originality, creative genius.


Their is a hierarchy with art at the top- society values art more than design.
Concepts related to art are good and concepts related to design are perhaps ignored.


Art- taught by other artists, 'influenced' by them, copying them?


Historically art was taught by copying your teacher/ master. More like an apprentice than a student, poses the question, 'when are you your own artist?'
Art is not about originality when you are taught to copy, there is an illusion that you are innovative, different designers and artists.


Working to briefs. Jobs- doing what we're told. Not being creative- us as designers.


Death of Chatterton. The tortured artist.
Outside of society. The tortured poet, no one understands his poetry, cant sell. So Avant-Garde and ahead of society. We killed Chatterton with our closed minds, a martyr to art and our culture.


Art and design was never original, always copied or 'influenced'.
If everyone does it for the love, what do artists live on? Art is just as commercial as design.


To be Avant-Garde you have to be ahead of society, better than them, misunderstood. 
Being political, making a change or being better than todays society. Changing the world vs being above the world. 


Peasants building a road, why do we find this challenging? What makes art?


Art for art's sake. What artists think they're doing and what is actually being communicated. 'pure'. Independent example of where art/ society is going as opposed to politically pushing the world forward- the world follows the art. Politics over aesthetics?


Art is valued because of its institutional value, the amount of literature on art. Critics inventing reasons why art is important. Art has value because people write about the value of art.


Avant-Garde designers almost dont care about communication. Loses understandability for the sake of experimentation- failing in the purpose of your discipline?


What is Kitsch?
Inferior, lower quality, in bad taste, tacky, has a certain lovability but in a patronising way. Poor imitation of something.
Something that doesn't adhere to taste as you see it. Value judgement- an elitist thing to do, to call something kitsch. Elitist takes into account cultural standards, not personal taste.
Reproducing art tackily on a different medium. Culture/ society says we should only be moved by art, not china, tacky reproductions etc.
We are told what is kitsch. Determined by status, Jeff Koons Michael Jackson sculpture is art and not kitsch just because it's made by a famous artist.


Graphic design is not seen as important because it is not shown in galleries. But if it was the would it be art? not the role of graphic design. graphic design changes when inserted into galleries.


There are more possibilities for graphic design to be Avant-Garde now because people don't go to galleries. Graphic design doesn't try to be elitist.  


To be of the Avant-Garde is to be elitist.