Avant-Garde Archives - Public Seminar

Art & Design

Where the Avant-Garde Went to Grow

Behind the scenes of Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923

November 26, 2024 • by Michael Inman and Mary Karmelek

We have really rich, deep collections of materials related to Greenwich Village, especially dealing with this period of the Village's history. When the wider public thinks of Bohemias or avant-garde settings, especially from that time period, the early twentieth century, their thoughts might gravitate towards Paris in the 1920s, or ...

Feature

Permanent Mystifications

The Story of Post-Conceptual Art in Slovakia

April 30, 2019 • by Max L. Feldman

Prague City Gallery’s “Probe 1: The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual Art” (12th December 2018 - 24th March 2019) came and went unnoticed. This is hardly surprising, despite the prime location of the museum’s 13th-century Stone Bell House site: a corner of the Old Town Square beneath the piercing spires of the Church ...

Feature

Russian Absurd

A glimpse into the notebooks of the modernist avant-garde artist Daniil Kharms translated from the Russian by Alex Cigale

December 18, 2017 • by Alex Cigale

From the Letters (1933) Monday October 16, 1933. Petersburg. Talent grows, destroying, building. The sign of stagnation is well-being. Dear Klavdia Vasilevna, You are a remarkable and genuine person! As much as it grieves me not to be able to see you, I won’t be inviting you to the Children’s Theater or to come to my city. How heartwarming ...

Literature

RetroDada Manifesto

February 8, 2016 • by McKenzie Wark

The RetroDada Manifesto was written at the invitation of Anita Hugi and David Dufresne for an event at Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, 4 & 5 March 2016, to celebrate the Dada centenary, in there place where it all began. For more information on that event, and related projects see http://dada-data.net/en/ Below ...

Theory & Practice

Pasolini: Sexting the World

July 15, 2015 • by McKenzie Wark

His original and perceptive theory of neo-capitalism came from direct engagement with the problems of making a postwar, post-Fascist culture. His commitment to the Grand Old Cause of the people was both moral but also erotic, even carnal. He wanted – needed – to cock-suck the world. Such was his ...