Avant - Garde/High Culture Vs Low Culture

Taking about avant-garde and high culture Vs low culture - 

Avant-Garde basically means to question everything, question the way art/design education relies on the concept of the avant-garde, question the notion of genius, the notion of being original, question art for art's sake and much more. 

Dictionaries link Term – ‘avant-garde’  with terms like
innovation in the arts or pioneers

-         idea of doing art/design work that is progressive – innovating

-         but also it refers to the idea of there being a group of people being
          innovative –


-         1. being avant-garde in the work you do  - challenging,
              innovating etc.
-         2. being a part of a group – being a member
              of the avant-garde 

In education theres a lot of pressure on students to be 'original' but then they say it's ok to copy and work from and experiment with others work to get knowledge. So how can anything really be original these days? Everything is just copied and recycled ideas. So that ask's the question, is there really something you can do that's Avant-Garde. Can you say to someone you know that's very Avant-Garde of you? 9 times outta 10, no, no you can't.

End of the 19th /early 20th C

two approaches to avant-garde art
 

1.     art that is socially committed [artists being the ‘avant-garde’ of   society, pushing forward political objectives]

2.     art that seeks only to expand / progress what art is (in itself
        and for itself) / art for art’s sake

This is about how people just recycle art. Art for art's sake, that people don't create original ideas they take someone else's art and make a different statement with it for example -

Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875)

James Abbot McNeill Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold (1874-78)

-It's not Avant-Garde it's just recycled. 

WHAT IS KITSCH?

Kitsch is basically art thats been taken and put onto something else for the modern eye. Such as a famous painting or a commemoration mug. Here's some pics to understand further - 

KITSCH

KITSCH?

DEFINITELY KITSCH!

Simplification of style – repainted masterpieces for the modern eye

Commemoration

(Animal Themes) This is true kitsch as it aims to be taken seriously as fine art!

So yeah you don't have to try to be avant-garde cause your uni or college will tell you to copy anyway, what i learned from this lecture mostly is to just be yourself and try not to care too much about what others think because to be honest everything's already been done before :)

Here's my notes from the lecture-