“What a Weird Picture? … or, ‘The Avant-Garde: What is it Good For?’”

You’ve seen the stereotype.

Some artist dressed from top to bottom in black tights, perhaps wearing a beret, smoking a fag, and wearing small circular sunglasses in the middle of the night either making or commenting on some form of art no one seems to get except themselves or a very “fringe” circle of critics and friends who declare so boldly as to, “get it.”

What’s to get, right? They are just a self-serving “fringe” with nothing to say except expressing their own form of visual or auditory “artistic masturbation,” pleasing to themselves—most certainly—but alas, to no one else.

There is truth in these statements and sentiments. There is, however, another side to this coin…

I think it is completely fair to say the avant-garde is and should stay where it belongs. In the underground. Quite frankly, as works of art they have no right on their own to appeal to the mainstream and honestly the fact that many critics have seemed to be responsible in literally “forcing” their recognition to the masses is almost deplorable. The avant-garde is meant to be divisionary—made with the intent to give other artists ideas whilst leaving the public in the complete and utter dark.

Let me reiterate that, because it serves the premise of my argument: “The avant-garde is art made for other artists.” The avant-garde serves as unabashed experiments in “form.” These “formatical,” (not a word, but bear with me), experiments are made completely outside of any budget, unhinged from whatever may end up censoring them, (including success), and are designed SOLELY for the purposes to give other artists ideas on how to make their art better. Picasso himself would not be far off from saying, “Great artists steal,” who do they “steal” from? Look no further than the avant-garde.

Now to bring it into perspective with film…

Film, (like any art form), is too a grand undertaking of experimenting. Whether experiments in form, new technologies, etc. It evolves just like any other art… but let’s take the course of when film really started to take a nose-dive into the realms of experimentation. This happened right after the First World War—around the 1920’s. In these films you had movements like Soviet Montage, German Expressionism, the Kammerspielfilm, French Impressionism, Surrealism, Dada, Experimental Narratives, City Symphonies, Cinema Pur, etc.

All of these “Movements” where known for a certain aesthetic.

German Expressionism were known for its distortion of angles, shadow play, and making things seem “larger than life,” (distortions of reality).

French Impressionism were, (much like the Kammerspielfilm), reflections on subjective reality. Hence having a lot of superimposing and kaleidoscoping of images.

Surrealism was about dream states, particularly about radical juxtapositions between sex and death.

Dada was about the art of “chaos” and “randomness.”

On it goes.

German Expressionism can still be felt today. Easily. Take any Tim Burton film or Film Noir and you’re immediately immersed in German Expressionism.

French Impressionism can be felt in a wide variety of areas, but the one that most certainly stands out with me is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now—speaking of its opening sequence. The music even “The End” by The Doors, is reminiscent of the avant-garde works of Kenneth Anger who single-handedly created the early foundations of the music video. Other influences in Apocalypse Now are the slaying of the bull/Colonel Kurtz in the form of “Intellectual Montage,” (again having influence by the Soviets).

Whilst Surrealism and Dada have seemed to have gotten its appeal more in the realms of the modern day comedy. Most television and cinematic comedy today, (like the Simpsons or Raising Arizona as an example), have taken a huge influence from the realms of these two in particular absurdist genres.

The argument of this article I’m trying to make is that there is, indeed, a purpose for these works… but their purpose will escape the mass audience. They are not designed, (unless you’re reading up on them out of sheer study or interest), to “peak” interest for the layman. They are designed for those who want to “spice up” their artistic repertoire and bring these “underground/experimental” ideas to the masses by finding a way to make them more appealing. Simple as that, bottom line.

So if you’ve ever wondered about an artistic piece, maybe even loathed it because its meaning escaped you. It was probably made for that purpose, one, and two you were probably lead on, (wrongly), by the critics who put you in a lower-class and “shamed” you for “not getting it.” When truth be told they themselves probably don’t fully “get it” had they “gotten it” they would be making art themselves—bringing these concepts to the masses.

All that being said, avant-garde is “weird” and it probably won’t resonate with you. But that’s not the purpose of this article. The purpose of this article is to try and explain the fact there is a purpose to these forms of art. They are forms of formatical art, no more, no less. If you’re into this sort of thing, (as am I), there is great joy in these works… but that’s being someone who’s inspired to “make” something from these ideas. But on the other end, there is beauty in mathematical equations, it eludes me and many others. Same principals apply, but no one should be made to feel “shame” over something that is a passing interest to begin with.

That’s my two cents on the topic, but that to me is what “The Avant-Garde is Good for."

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage