Theory of the Avant-Garde
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Theorie der Avantgarde (1974) is a book on the avant-garde by Peter Bürger. It was translated into English as Theory of the Avant-Garde in 1984.
The book claimed that whereas the Dada, Surrealist, and Constructivist avant-gardes of the early twentieth century were engaged in motivated critiques of the institution of art, the activities of the postwar avant-gardes were merely so many forms of repetition serving to institutionalize the legacy of avant-gardism itself.
More specifically it looks at the establishment's embrace of socially critical works of art and suggests that in complicity with capitalism, "art as an institution neutralizes the political content of the individual work."
While the title of Bürger's essay is an explicit reference to Renato Poggioli's, he makes several useful additions to the latter's groundbreaking study, such as the distinction between "historical" (Futurism, Dada, Surrealism) and "neo" avant-garde (Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, etc.).
