After the Avant-Gardes

The following collection is the fruit of intellectual labors begun at an

Arts Colloquium held under the auspices of the Hegeler Institute, at the

Hegeler-Carus Mansion in La Salle, Illinois, on March 28th–30th, 2003.

The theme of the meeting, “After Modernism and Postmodernism: New

Directions in the Arts” was approached from a variety of disciplinary

angles. The resulting collection is interdisciplinary, with literary theo-

rists, philosophers, music scholars, poets, public intellectuals, and stu-

dio artists articulating their views on the future of the fine arts.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I, “The Future of Art,” is

the most theoretical, with each contributor developing views on the

meaning of modernism and the future of art. The two essays in Part II,

“Progress and Permanence” deal with the problem of progress in art and

the marks of truly progressive art. The final part, “The Prison of Avant-

Gardism,” poses some biting challenges to the view that the avant-garde

opened productive spaces for the future of art. While no essay sings a

song of nostalgia for some lost Golden Age of art, many of the essays do

emphasize that there is much of value to be found in the models of art

offered in the past, and that there is still room for beauty in art. A theme

connecting the essays is a tone of alarm with the way in which art has

been “progressing” in our culture.

The following lines from Frederick Turner well capture a sentiment

of the contributors:

It is my contention that our “high” or “academic” or “avant-garde” culture

is in a state of crisis. This crisis is not a healthy one, but a sickness unto

death, a decadence that threatens to destroy our society.^1

Turner was the keynote speaker at the La Salle meeting, and in his work

he diagnoses a sickness from which our culture suffers and prescribes

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Introduction

Elizabeth Millán

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