
The Idea of the Avant Garde: And What it Means Today (Paperback)
Marc James Leger (editor)
£17.99
Paperback
296 Pages /
Published: 30/09/2014
- We can order this from the publisher
This book is premised on the view that the idea of the avant garde has an increased importance in these times of global political crisis. Much cultural production today is shaped by a biopolitics that construes all creative and knowledge production in terms of capital accumulation. A different kind of culture is possible.
This collection of writings, essays, interviews and artworks by many of today's most radical cultural practitioners and astute commentators on matters avant garde mediates the different strategies and temporalities of avant-garde art and politics. Tracing diverse genealogies and trajectories, the book offers an inter-generational forum of ideas that covers different arts fields, from visual art, art activism, photography, film and architecture, to literature, theatre, performance, intermedia and music.
This is an extraordinarily rich collection and is sure to be a benchmark for many years.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719096914
Number of pages: 296
Weight: 1043 g
Dimensions: 279 x 216 x 20 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'The avant garde never gives up! Leger's excellent anthology gives ample proof that the struggle to bring aesthetic transformation to everyday life, and to bring everyday struggles into aesthetic transformation is alive and well and taking on ever new forms. Every aspiring avant-gardist could learn a thing or two from this book. Study it, steal from it, stick it in the blender and concoct your mix with some new ingredients. The world needs the avant-garde spirit now more than ever.'
McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto and The Beach Beneath the Street
'In the age of deception, when everything presents itself as something else, where militants perform as artists and business people imagine themselves as revolutionaries, can we still recognize the 'avant garde'? This highly informative anthology engages several generations of artists and thinkers to question the meaning and identity of the avant garde in a post-everything world of blurred horizons, distorted perspectives and disguised authorities.'
Eda Cufer, dramaturg and founding member of NSK -- .
You may also be interested in...
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Not registered? CREATE AN ACCOUNTCREATE A plus ACCOUNT
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
Click & Collect
Please note that owing to current COVID-19 restrictions, some of our shops are closed. Find out more by clicking here.
Thank you for your reservation
Your order is now being processed and we have sent a confirmation email to you at
When will my order be ready to collect?
Following the initial email, you will be contacted by the shop to confirm that your item is available for collection.
Call us on or send us an email at
Unfortunately there has been a problem with your order
Please try again or alternatively you can contact your chosen shop on or send us an email at