THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607250197
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 33 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
LENGTH: 71 lines
Let's talk definitions. I read an article in a local newspaper about a year-and-a half ago about an artist the author referred to as avant-garde. It really boiled my blood to hear that reference used to describe someone creating work that was not unusual. I had seen similar work 20 years ago.
I recently heard a woman say that a sibling of hers made avant-garde art, but Christo has been wrapping ribbons around mountains and working in a similar conceptual style for more than 30 years. So I looked up avant-garde to refresh my memory, since it has been 20 years since I graduated from art school. My art dictionary stated: ``Used to describe art or artists departing from the accepted tradition or the academic norm to explore techniques or concepts in an original way.''
My anarchist juices were flowing. I wondered if the term could be used loosely. Can the definition be interpreted as original to the artist, original to the Outer Banks, to a specific neighborhood in Flushing Meadow, or is it to solely mean original in regard to the history of art?
I called my friend, Denver Lindley, who is so wise and experienced I figured he has to know more than I do. And as a serious painter, art philosopher and Yale art and literature graduate, he is a real powerhouse.
``That's a nifty topic,'' said the Outer Banks artist. I pumped him further. ``It used to be much easier to apply that term,'' he said. He talked about art in the mid-1800s (no, he's not that old) when the ``established'' French Salon - a juried annual exhibition - created a stranglehold on artists with jurors rejecting anything that went against the norm. One year in particular, a huge body of artists were rejected including Manet, Cezanne and Pissarro. The outrage was so great that Napoleon III ordered a show of the rejectees called Salon des Refuses.
The avant-garde artist found a public platform.
But today, when critics have to scramble like rats to uncover anything that even smells new, is it time to retire the word avant-garde? And since many artists believe that they go to a universal place in the mind when they work, can anything really be considered avant-garde if we are all pooling from the same source?
I found myself in a dark and wordy hole so I called my trusty sister Elizabeth, word-lover extraordinare. She's my confidant. If I have a bellyache, I call Elizabeth. If I have a heartache, I call Elizabeth. So, since today I was working on a powerful ``avant-garde'' headache - I'm sure no one has ever had one like this before - I dialed her Indiana number. While Elizabeth was comfortable with the above mentioned dictionary definition of avant-garde, she also said that no language (except perhaps what appears on the Rosetta Stone) is written in stone. She quickly pointed out that it's not an external arbiter that defines a word, but that it changes naturally. That's why dictionaries are rewritten.
Armed with a Ph.D. in linguistics, Elizabeth informed me that linguists describe language rather than prescribe it. But she warned that having a definition and seeing how to apply it are two different things. I thought about Jack Brickhouse and his birdhouses. While creating birdhouses is not avant-garde, perhaps Jack's concept is. He makes them out of crumbling tobacco barns in an effort to preserve the barn's state of disarray which Jack finds beautiful.
Jack probably doesn't give a hoot. And when Elizabeth reminded me of how folks make quilts out of nostalgic clothing, I was struck down. Denver and I think maybe it's time to retire the word avant-garde since it has lost a lot of its impact.
But maybe we shouldn't be too hasty and throw the baby out with the bath water.
``As long as people draw breaths,'' said Lindley, ``there will be new ways of seeing things.''
Not an avant-garde statement, I thought, but one definitely worth preserving. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARL ELLEN RIDDLE
Denver Lindley said in past years it used to be much easier to apply
the term avant-garde. by CNB