Thursday 29 December 2011

Lecture 7- High and low Culture

Lecture 7 High and Low Culture 


Avant Garde
"Avant garde" refers to the idea of being progressive or moving towards something, many would argue that Avant Guarde is within the society which we live in.


- Avant garde challenges art and is seen to be better than art.
if something is described as Avant Guarde it is being described as better.


- Avant Guarde is very institutionalised, and especially in todays modern society there is pressure to be original all the time.


-In the past,only those who were very privileged went to art school, they were taught to copy art of the time, artists were paid to rein act famous art and the style was all pretty similar. there was no expression. However today art exists to be different from previous art. and art which is successful at this is the most controversial.


-In the past leaders used to direct the art world, leaders such as Stalin restricted what 
was"art" could be published and shown to the public.


Marcel Duchamp


  • Radical and sensational very controversial
  • he did the mona lisa and drew a moustash and called it " She's got a hot ass", this matches the sarcasm and the type of honour which many anent grade works use. 
-Many institutions today are highly Avant Guarde, for example LCA encourages


  • Originality 
  • Creativeness
  • Experimentation
  • Innovation
-Much of the work which is Avant Guarde is based on politics.


Chris Burden


Created a very avant garde peine of art when he got someone to shoot him with a gun in a gallery to recreate a situation similar or what could be linked to the Vietnamese war which was current at the time. 


-Stalin banned avant-guarde art stopping all forms of experiment. A real problem for the avant guarde is that it seems to necessitate 'Elitism. So for those members of the 'left wing' there was a tendency to have to rely on academic tecniques in order to appeal. 


Kitsch Art
  • By looking at Kitch work it become elitist in itself
  • Low culture controls the art snobbery through kitsch items creating a divide
  •  Everyone has an elitist sub culture in their lives therefore we become the underclass by not realising this.

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