Avant Garde...

Avant Garde was an Art and design style that's purpose was to be progressive and inovative. Avant garde was quirky and original, in a way it mocked the elitism of art and challenged the conventional assumptions of what art is. It was very anti- conventional and anti- elitis.

Now a days the term avant garde has been dispositioned and it is slightly weird in what people call avant garde today.

To be avant garde one must be ahead of society and outside of it, to be able to become a creative genius and inovative.

Avant Garde is a French military term meaning cutting edge/ political and aesthetic.

I have found two pieces of Avant Garde Graphic design:

The two images are proposed pieces of avant garde graphic design, they aim to be inovative and striking. Both images are from the Adbusters website. The top image shows a woman breast feeding a branded baby. Adbusters purpose is to be very anti- consumerist and the ad above is doing this in a very avant garde way. They have branded the baby to show that it has already been pumped with consumerism. Its a spoof ad that is trying to be progressive by going against society and representing their ad in a controversial way.

The second as is also by Adbusters, it shows a rather large man's stomach, its pretty much saying that to be free means to be fat. The man had the freedom of food and by that he has consumed too much and became grosly obese. Again they use a very striking technique to get their point across. They have tryed to challenge the way in which consumerist advertisment is protrayed. Their work is more grounded, aggressive and real. It is showing it as it is, not in an elitis way. I think this is why avant garde is so important when done in the right way.

It is to be real and not show fantacies, to be out there and to be almost better than the world but in an anti- elitis way. As a society we have always known art to be for the rich and fortunate. Avant garde allows the lower classes to enjoy art too.