Izvorni znanstveni članak
Art as Revolution, Museum and Tradition: How to Think and Write the History of Literature After the Avant-Garde?
Marina Protrka Štimec
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Sažetak
When compared to post-vanguard artistic practices absorbed into an institutional
frame, the historical avant-garde in its broad artistic and social contexts, as Peter Bürger in
his Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984) claimed, acts as radically new. Disrupting previous
concepts of artistic universalism and homogeneity, the historical avant-garde is presented
as unique and historically inimitable. When reused in later (neo)avant-gardes, this artistic
practice loses its radicality and ends up being institutionally absorbed, without any visible
social or political impact. This conclusion was previously presented in (Puchner, Poetry
of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-Gardes, Princeton University Press,
Princeton and Oxford, 2005) study of manifestoes as an artistic form that reappears with its
transformative force, questioning the inimitability of the avant-garde. Although it is possible
to trace recurrent artistic attacks in the public space, it is worth examining Bürger’s statement,
which says that both art and social institutions demonstrated resistance to the attacks
of the avant-gardes, the former by adopting its artistic practices and the latter by confirming
their resistance to the avant-garde claim for the revision and aestheticisation of everyday
life. Discussions and controversies on writing and understanding literary history (Perkins,
Roberts) as well as the institutional crisis that collides with or follows after neo-avant-garde
movements demonstrate the vulnerability of the institutional system, the gaps in production
and maintenance of institutional footholds: literary history, canon formation and academy.
The aim of this essay is to examine the interdependence between the institutional position
and the vanguard opposition that could be traced both in the historiographic discourse and
its methodology striving to discipline and surpass vanguard disruptions and unevenness
in the literary field. In Croatian literature, these procedures are evident in the reductive
treatment and valorization of the historical avant-garde as much as in omitting or bypassing
its participation in the neo-avant-garde positioning of some relevant literary movements,
groups, and individuals (Ujević, Vrkljan, Krugovi). Furthermore, artistic practices that
problematise the «neutral« and «transparent« distribution of institutional power (Haacke,
Zorica) renew the contemporary avant-garde resistance and keep alive counter-discourse
with its transgressive power.
Ključne riječi
Avant-garde; Literary history; Peter Bürger; Literary revolution; Institution; Krugovi; Tin Ujević; Željko Zorica
Hrčak ID:
316974
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.5.2024.
Posjeta: 27 *