Notes from Peter Burger, Theory of the Avant Garde
Zanrovi su prividni, mada postoji studij I proucavanje poezije I umjetnosti. Publik Publika a nije nije nikada nikada pasivn pasivna, a, uvijek uvijek imaju imaju mislje misljenje nje/pr /predr edrasu asudu. du. Zavisn Zavisno o od situac situacije ije tumac koristi svoju predrasudu. Mi gledamo na proslost iz perspektive nase epohe, mi to ne mozemo poreci. Drustvena funkcija religije religija ublazava patnju, ali takodjer ogranicava srecu. !ada !ada je covjek covjek saznao saznao da je relig religija ija apstrak apstraktna tna ili privid prividna na on ju je na nekin nekin nacin nacin pretvorio u "lozo"ju, te ju je prestao p restao smatrati vjerom. vjerom. #dorno $ avangarda nema funkciju %&urger pak smatra da avangarda ima/treba da ima funkciju razonode ili da pokrene diskusiju' #vangarda vangarda na neki nacin stabilizir stabilizira a sve sto joj se nadje na putu ( protestuje
uvjete uvjete protiv kojih kojih
)mjetnost )mjetnost nam daje barem barem imaginarnu imaginarnu satisfak satisfakciju/ ciju/zadov zadovoljst oljstvo vo nasim individualn individualnim im potrebama koje svakodnevni zivot potiskuje. Individualne potrebe/momenti potrebe/momenti ne bi trebali biti lahko lahko easil* povezani. +jihova +jihova funkcija se tako gubi. Dada nema stil, nema ethos$ ona je po burgeru pravi primjer historijske avangarde zato sto totalno nije dio neke institucije, nije vezana za istu. &enjamin $ reprodukcija reprodukcija u mehanicko doba mijenja poimanje umjetnosti. hen art takes the place of religion art generates ritual rather than e-isting for the ritual & of Dada Dada $ he heir ir poem poems s are are a 0ord 0ord sala salad1 d1 cont contai aini ning ng obsc obscen enit itie ies s and and ever ever* * imaginable 0aste product of language1 #rt no0ada*s is made 0ith pro"t in mind. 2o0 does poetr*, the anomal* "t in3 he 0ritten 0ord does not have a moment like painting does 0ith photograph* because literature can never take a snapshot $ although people have tried like sa* the imagists but even this is a version. 4f course realist photograph* is a version too #rt di5ers from ever*da* life6 it is magical. herefore all arts are jumbled together as a 0hole. 7ike the vile notion poets must stick together. together. hen art loses its functional value it gains educational value %the furtherance'. &ut it is often light education disguised as furtherance Model %8unction, production, reception'
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In courtl* art the artist becomes a0are of his uni:ueness ;he citizen 0ho, in ever*da* life has been reduced to a partial function %means(ends activit*' can be discovered in art as human being1< he institution has de"ned art as things 0hich are in the institution $ this happens because of a sociological rather than an aesthetic reason. =imilar ideas in >eturn of the >eal, 8oster. 8or &urger the true avant(garde artist 0ants to break 0ith the s*stem. his is often di?cult for a modern da* artist after Duchamp, as 0hen he broke the s*stem the art then became the s*stem $ think also 7.2.4.4.@. ke*(rings at he ate. he culture industr* has brought about the false elimination of the distance bet0een art and life #n* argument that a read*made negates the notion of the art 0ork being produced b* the individual is unfounded as it is his idea and ideas are no0 0hat art is zara and &reton give instructions on ho0 to make art. his is an attack on the notion of an individual making art $ i.e. the artist is simpl* a 0orker 0hen making a cut up poem from an arbitrar* ne0spaper ;oda* the onl* 0orks 0hich reall* count are those 0hich are no longer 0orks at all.< $ #dorno &ut lots of the bourgeoisie favour Aack Bettriano, photo of a dog 0ith a speech bubble going 0oof, etc. 2o0 is this art given back to us from the institution3 he 8lar"sts treat their action as the "rst time in poetr* rather than as the umpteenth hackne*ed time in art. he problem of splitting disciplines in art in terms of intention and manufacture Much conceptual art %including poetr*' does not give enough attention to form he famous 8larf stor* that =ullivan tells of a vanit* publisher accepting his Coogle mumbo(jumbo. his is a peculiar notion. he vanit* press, the same as the institution, does not take e-perimental unless there is to be mone* to be made in it.
#nti(tradition became tradition. =o did it not 0in then3 It did not as 8ountain is no0 treated as part of our leisure and separate from our life pra-is he argument that arts and crafts, and cooker* and gardening is art, as it is the people1s trul* ;he neo avant(garde institutionalizes the avant(garde as art and thus negates genuinel* avant(garde intentions.< o remain in silence3 hings al0a*s become ne0 but 0hat is meant b* ne0 b* the avant(garde is total ne0ness $ a radical shift. #dorno belives that the artist1s drive to be ne0 is analogous to the consumption of ne0 goods b* bu*ers in capitalist governments arhol and the abstract e-pressionists accept this and is not therefore avant garde Aust as consumption has need of fads so too does art need them. here are perhaps toda* man* more movements and the* become replaced as king movement at a :uicker rate of transition $ think of the coming and going of minimalism but did it reall* go3 as it e-hausted aestheticall*3 #re there more1 movements because of globalisation and media coverage3 he results of some Dada 0orks is that the* are free of ideolog*. =a* for e-ample chance pieces but the alleator* action is not free of ideolog*6 in fact it is heavil* conceptual 8or &urger ubism isn1t anti(tradition %therefore is not the avant(garde' as it does not represent a true shift. i.e. 0e can all read the painting %a collective, sociable e-perience6 see model' In non(avant(garde 0orks the 0hole needs its parts and the parts needs its 0hole. his is not the case in avant(garde 0orks $ think about the Aason >hoades large detritus sculptures/installations 8or the avant(garde, process and outcome are more important than content ;his refusal to provide meaning is e-perienced as shock b* the recipient.< #vant(garde hopes that the >efusal to give meaning 9 recipient is shocked 9 recipient reconsiders their life pra-is / realises life pra-is is separate from art &) he shock is generall* non(speci"call* directed and therefore the recipients respond 0ith blind fur*, do not kno0 ho0 to read the 0ork and therefore do not change their life pra-is or even consider it as separate from life
Is a solution to direct the shock3 +ot to tell the audience the meaning but to tell them it is 4! to have an individual reading and that one can be part of a collective 0ithin individual readings $ think presentation of he 4ther >oom, if p then q I remember reading some0here about someone getting a =alt catalogue through their door and disliking the 0a* it 0as marketed, sa*ing it 0as pointless to package #lan 2alse* in a glitz* 0a*. he reason being that since 2alse*1s current audience are above such marketing techni:ues and there is therefore no need to market the book in a glitz* 0a*. he ans0er is simple the* are tr*ing to create an audience and not shock people so much so that the audience doesn1t consider the prospect of approaching the 0ork. e must remember the =alt list is ver* strange no0 0ith their publications over the last t0o *ears &urger1s book essentiall* ignores 8uturism $ both >ussian and Italian. Is this because 8uturism never became institutionalised as did Dada and surrealism6 it simpl* died he institution is happ* to pla* Duchamp1s games as he signals that all is to be consumed and sold and therefore the institution can sell 0hat it 0ants $ ever*thing he avant(garde destro*ed the notion of aesthetic hierarch*. his can often be misread as the need to consider ever*thing &recht attempted to change the institution from 0ithin Is this 0hat innovative poetr* attempted but instead 0eakl* became part of a sub(culture of tradition in the universities and then shut shop in terms of its responsibilit* to tell people about the distinction of life art pra-is6 letting slam and stor*(telling %prose 0ritten in stanzas' to remain the institution in terms of festivals and media coverage3 he 4ther >oom attempts to change the s*stem from 0ithin, slo0 as that ma* be and 0ith the little po0er it has Is the internet an institution of sorts3 !e* Di5erences bet0een Poggioli and &urger1s heor* of the #vant(Carde
omments
&oth reach a theor* of t*pes of signi"cant change and characteristics of a certain t*pe of grouping. he* could be labelled 0ith di5erent terms than avant(garde perhaps &urger la*s claim to being correct 0ith the proof coming as his is a hermeneutical stud* 0hereas Poggioli1s theor* is based on general kno0ledge and vague de"nitions. #1 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-garde [1974 (#rt into life #! "hat s, for Peter Bürger, the hstor$a% avant-garde& - Dada, =urrealism, >ussian avant(garde after 4ctober revolution
EF "hat are the $ommon features& ( Do not reject individual artistic techni:ues and procedures of earlier art, but rather the* reject that art in its entiret*G (>adical break 0ith tradition. (In their most e-treme manifestations, their primar* target is art as an institution such as it has developed in bourgeois societ*.
EH "hat a'out $u'sm& ( Part of historical avant(garde because it :uestions linear perspective that had prevailed since the >enaissanceG&) it doesn1t share basic tendenc* sublation of art in the pra-is of life.
Peter &rger1s heor* of the #vant(garde %published in JKLH' has been a milestone 0ithin art theor*, and especiall* 0ithin the art theor* on the art of the %earl*' Nth centur*. 2is te-t serves as a ke* :uote in numerous books on =urrealism, Dadaism, 8uturism or the +eo(#vant(garde.OF In his book &rger describes a historical development of the art. =ummarized, one can roughl* single out "ve historical developments in his te-t. 8irst in account is sacral art, 0hich had its place in churches and still had a clear function. he painters mostl* sta*ed anon*mous and the reception 0as collective. he second step 0as, according to &rger, courtl* art, 0hich $ e-actl* like sacral art $ had a clear function %namel* to represent the court and praise the prince' and, again the reception 0as collective. he onl* shift that can be registered lies in the 0a* of production. Painters are not anon*mous an*more but the production became more individual. he third historical episode in heor* of the #vant(garde is bourgeois art. ith the emancipation of the bourgeoisie, under capitalism, art became relativel* autonomous and created its o0n sphere. here has been a clear shift 0ithin the constitution of art6 from a functional media 0hich should address a %sacral or sociable' collective to0ards an %autonomous' art that has become a mere individual matter. #ccording to Peter &rger this ne0 autonom* of art has started during the time of, 0hat he calls, aestheticism, 0ith 0hich he means the time after !ant1s theories. &rger anal*ses Immanuel !ant1s and 8riedrich =chiller1s vie0s on taste and aesthetics. !ant sa*s that there are t0o forms of kno0ledge, namel* the logical and the sensual. #esthetics are in bet0een those t0o forms of kno0ledge, 0hilst taste is free and 0ithout interest as it is supposed to have an universal claim. he bottom line of this is that art is autonomous as it cannot be judged 0ith interest, 0hich means that neither the church nor the court can produce/have art that serves for their interest 0ithout losing its claim to universalit*. he theories that !ant generated
reached their full(blo0n form in the last decades of the nineteenth centur* in =*mbolism and the thought of lQart pour lQart %e.g. MallarmR'. #rt has become self(reSective and at the same time, sa*s &rger, functionless. #t this point, 0hen artists recognized this detachment from the active life pra-is, the fourth period in art histor* started, namel* the avant(garde. his must not be confused 0ith Modernism, 0hich describes a change or better evolution of st*le %like ubism' 0hilst the avant(garde project involved radical change of the 0a* of life. hrough self(criticism, artists became a0are of the inabilit* of art to have an e5ect on ever*(da*(life. he artists developed ne0 0a*s of overcoming this functionlessness %e.g. the ne0, the chance and the montage'. ith this attempt &rger1s description of the motivation of the avant(garde movement stands against #dorno1s de"nition of the modernist art, 0hich he sees as t0ofolded. 8or #dorno art is negative on di5erent levels, 0hereas &rger describes the e5orts of the avant(garde to re(integrate art into life practices in more positive terms. 2o0ever, &rger asserts that this project %re(integreation into ever*(da*(life(pra-is' failed. he avant(garde has become historical and got integrated into the museum. hat means it has become institutionalised and at the same time detached from ever*da* life or the aim to have an e5ect on it. his becomes :uite obvious 0ith the appearance of the +eo(avant(garde %0hich can be counted as the "fth historical step in art histor*'. he +eo(avant(garde operates 0ithin a parado- situation. he* criticise institutional facts but at the same time can onl* do so 0ithin an institutional frame0ork. #n e-ample for this is Daniel &uren. 2e attacks the museum in his te-ts.OT #t the same time he produces 0orks in/for the museum and therefore becomes part of the s*stem. In the UNs for e-ample he produced invisible art 0orks in the =tedelijk Museum in #msterdam, 0here he painted his famous strips on the backs of other painting so the* 0ould become invisible for the audience but still 0ould have their place in the museum. he same situation can be recorded in regard to artists like #ndrea 8raser, 2ans 2aacke or Michael #sher. he 0hole concept of institutional criti:ue has been incorporated into the discursive and 0ith that, one could argue, lost a bit of their critical potential. In his JKLH 0ork, heor* of the #vant(Carde, Peter &rger developed a sociological argument that the practices of the historical avant(garde had emerged as a fusion of art and life, merging practices into a h*brid assault on autonom* that can be characterized as distinctl* avant(garde. >efuting previous positions, &rger argued that the avant( garde 0asn1t concerned 0ith merel* dismantling the classi"cations of art, but the institution of art in its entiret*. his 0as dramaticall* opposed to lement Creenberg1s hegemonic theor* of art practice, 0here the segregated medium 0as the sole attribute through 0hich the avant(garde could advance. It 0as in opposition to this di5usion of art practice that &rger1s theor* framed a radicalized lens through 0hich the avant(garde could be reconceptualised combatting the segregation of medium 0ith a deliberate fusing of the structures of art and their political and social histories. his paper 0ill look at the signi"cant role fusion, as a strateg*, pla*s in &rger1s seminal 0ork and its reception. It is the recognition of fusion as an oppositional s*stem in art production that not onl* distinguishes his approach from earl* incarnations of modernism, but has also seen the e-tension of his 0ork into ongoing critical projects in art theor* in #merica, 0hich have radicalised fusion as a critical and creative practice.
hen Peter &rger 0rote his short but inSuential heor* of the #vant(Carde in JKLH he 0as 0riting in a cultural climate of immense change 0here man* of the structures and institutions of modernism 0ere being violentl* torn apart. 8rustrated 0ith the failures of the Ma* JKUT riots in Paris OKV and committed to e-tending the Mar-ist dialectic of the 8rankfurt =chool, &rger1s treatise is 0ritten partl* out of disgust 0ith the rampant commoditisation of the art market and partl* out of a personal need to document the unprecedented historical transformations that 0ere occurring in front of him. &rger dre0 heavil* from the aesthetic positions of Ceorg 7ukacs, heodor #dorno and alter &enjamin that had prescientl* linked the practices of art 0ith those of capitalist production thereb* demonstrating the revolutionar* potential and limitations of the autonomous art object. 8or #dorno in particular, the categor* of art raised important and unprecedented :uestions in relationship to cultural production, and foreshado0ed the inherent commercialisation 0ith 0hich capitalism and autonom* 0ere intert0ined. 2o0ever, &rger1s thesis goes be*ond the social philosoph* of art and its critical reception in order to sketch a historical frame0ork for the avant(garde and an ideological criti:ue of its tactics. &rger1s subject matter is not ne0. &* JKLH, theorising the avant(garde had been a fascination of critics for over four decades and had been some0hat of a preoccupation in #merican art theor* and particularl* 0ithin the formalist circle of lement Creenberg and his follo0ers. he point of departure for &rger1s heor* of the #vant(Carde 0as its insistence on developing a radicalised historical structure for studies of the avant(garde, positioning the avant(gardes of the JKJNs and JKNs as the origin of radical art and all subse:uent activit* as a derivation of this initial and most pure revolutionar* form. &rger rejected the more heavil* trodden path of theorising the avant(garde in dialectical opposition to the popular %or kitsch'. Instead, &rger conceptualised the avant(garde as a distinct historical phenomenon, peculiar to the "rst decades of the t0entieth centur* and in opposition to the bourgeois aesthetic practices that 0ere, in his vie0, rampant in the historical periods either side of it. &rger1s argument is relativel* straightfor0ard. 2e argued that a process of institutionalising art had occurred in the late eighteenth and earl* nineteenth centuries and this had led to the gentri"cation of art and the isolation of its inherentl* bourgeois audience OFV(VH. In this sense, he follo0s the earlier precedents of #dorno and &enjamin, 0ho dre0 a distinction bet0een ;organic< and ;nonorganic< art0orks the former being associated 0ith the bourgeois structures intrinsic to the production of art and meaning and the latter 0ith the categor* of avant(gardiste 0orks characterised b* fragmentation and a collapse of the structures of holistic meaning. &rger maintained that the radical creative approaches of the "rst decades of the t0entieth centur* 0ere an attempt to both identif* and dismantle this institutionalisation of art, attacking the bourgeois gentri"cation of art process and, ultimatel*, realigning creativit* 0ith the e-perience of modern life. In short, the historical avant(garde attacked the autonom* of the art object and its institutionalisation and conSated the categories of art and life. 8or &rger this meant that the histor* of the avant(garde needed to be distinguished from the broader histor* of modernism.
