This document discusses concepts related to high and low culture in art. It introduces terms like "avant-garde" and questions assumptions around concepts like originality, genius, and the notion of art for art's sake. It provides examples of artworks to illustrate different approaches like socially committed art versus art that seeks only to expand what art is. The document encourages questioning priorities in art education around innovation, experimentation, and originality.
2. Objectives:
•Understand the term ‘avant-garde’
•Question the way art/design education relies on the concept
of the avant-garde
•Understand the related concept of ‘art for art’s sake’
•Question the notion of ‘genius’
•Consider the political perspectives relating to avant-gardism
•Question the validity of the concept ‘avant-garde’ today
3. Dictionaries link Term – ‘avant-garde’ with terms like
innovation in the arts or pioneers
- idea of doing art/design work that is progressive – innovating
- but also it refers to the idea of there being a group of people being
innovative –
- 1. being avant-garde in the work you do - challenging,
innovating etc.
- 2. being a part of a group – being a member
of the avant-garde
10. Visual Communications
‘The second level aims to let you experiment within you
chosen range of disciplines’
‘Our aim is to encourage students to take a radical approach
to communication’
To be a student on the course you need to enjoy:-
‘Challenging conventions’
11. Printed Textiles
& Surface Pattern Design
Our aim is to provide an environment which allows you to discover,
develop, and express your personal creative identity through your
work’
‘Level one studies concentrate on ‘… experimentation’
13. Furniture
‘Throughout the course you will be encouraged to form a personal vision
and direction based upon critical self –analysis’
14. Fashion/Clothing
We encourage you to develop your individual creativity to the highest
level . . .
‘Level one studies concentrate on . . . .experimentation’
15. Art and Design (Interdisciplinary)
‘What will unite all your creative output will be the ability to apply your
creative and technical skills in innovative ways, which are not limited to
traditional subject boundaries’
16. LCAD quotes prioritise certain concepts:-
(feel free to question these)
1. Innovation [creating new stuff]
2. Experimentation [process involved in order to achieve new
stuff]
3. Originality [to copy is bad, to be original is good]
4. Creative genius [to bring out a hidden creative depth held
deep within the student]
17.
18.
19.
20. Art for Art’s Sake
Whistler Nocturne
in Black and Gold:
The Falling Rocket
(1875)
21. End of the 19th /early 20th C
two approaches to avant-garde art
1. art that is socially committed [artists being the ‘avant-garde’ of
society, pushing forward political objectives]
2. art that seeks only to expand / progress what art is (in itself
and for itself) / art for art’s sake
22. Art for Art’s
Sake
James Abbot McNeill Whistler
Nocturne in Black and
Gold (1874-78)
23. Clive Bell
Significant form
The relations and combinations of lines and colours,
which when organised give the power to move someone aesthetically.
29. A major problem for the avant-garde is that it seems to necessitate
‘ELITISM’
So for those members of the ‘left wing’ [interested in social change]
there was a tendency to have to rely on ACADEMIC
TECHNIQUES in order to appeal to the ‘public’.
54. $49.3M $78.1M
Picasso Les Noces de Pierrette, 1905 sold 1989 Binoche et Godeau
Paris Tomonori Tsurumaki Renoir Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876 sold 1990 Sotheby’s, New
York Ryoei Saito
$39.7 $82.5M
Van Gogh Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, 1888, sold 1987, Christies,
London Yasuo Goto, Yasuda Comp. Van Gogh1889 Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1st version), sold 1990
Christies New York Ryoei Saito
57. Awkward questions to ask
your tutors
• 1. Why does our work have to be ‘original’?
• 2. Is it possible to be ‘avant-garde’ and/or
‘original’?
• 3. If I make my work socially committed so
that people can understand it can it still be
avant-garde / innovative?
