Word: avant
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...shape. Advanced art, that is. The diagnosis: condition feeble. The prognosis: poor. The avant-garde has finally run out of steam, whether in Munich or Los Angeles, Paris or New York; the turnover of styles and theories that gave the 1960s their racketing ebullience (Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Op, Pop and so on) has been followed by a sluggish descent into entropy. There seems to be no escape from that spiral...
...remedy that was proposed with increasing frequency was the abolition of the art object itself-anything that could be bought or possessed. This was not a new idea. Unfortunately, when used as a principle of art activity, it caused an eddy-even a vacuum-in which the avant-garde is immobilized today...
...their proliferating hybrids-avoids the object like the plague. The public has retreated, in turn, from it. This is a worldwide phenomenon, and what now exists is not simply a recession of interest (and talent) but a general weariness-a reluctance to believe in the avant-garde as principle. To be ahead of the game now seems pointless, for the game-under its present rules-is not worth playing...
These are not, to put it mildly, the conditions that govern what passes for advanced art today, especially in New York. The Avant-Garde Festival, held this fall on a boat moored at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, was a fair example of the problem: a confusion of irresolute trivia, ranging from a cabin full of autumn leaves (which, at least, the kids enjoyed throwing around), through numerous video pieces, to Charlotte Moorman-who enjoys a fame of sorts as the world's only topless cellist-playing her instrument under water. It was all so affably amateurish, like...
George Crumb, Black Angels (13 Images from the Dark Land) for Electric String Quartet (New York String Quartet; CRI, $5.95). The avant-garde LP of the year. In 1968, as a virtual unknown of 39, Crumb won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his orchestral suite Echoes of Time and the River. In the years since, he has been winning something perhaps even more important-a reputation as one of the major innovators of American music. One hallmark of the Crumb style is his fondness for programmatic schemes that can be startling and bizarre, but usually display his uncanny knack...