Friday, April 30, 2010

Avant-garde: the MoMA through Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel

Avant-garde (French; means "advance guard" or "vanguard".[1] The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.

Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism.

Above; the avant-garde of the 1950's"
Bicycle Wheel
Marcel Duchamp (American, born France. 1887-1968)
Dada Movement
New York 1951

Although Duchamp had collected manufactured objects in his studio in Paris, it was not until he came to New York that he identified them as a category of art, giving the English name "Readymade" to any object purchased "as a sculpture already made."

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