Theory and the Avant Garde

In his Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford), Christopher Butler points out that postmodern art and postmodern theory arose at different times and had different sources of inspiration. Postmodernism in art is evident in the postwar period as art becomes “deliberately less unified, less obviously ‘masterful,’ more playful or anarchic, more concerned with the processes of our understanding than with the pleasures of artistic finish or unity, less inclined to hold a narrative together, and certainly more resistant to a certain interpretation, than much of the art that had preceded it.” Artistic postmodernism intended to shock and disorient, to disturb the viewer or reader, to highlight its artificiality and question its status as art.

Postmodern theory arose somewhat later, and had little interaction with the avant garde. Instead, postmodern theorists “began their work by thinking about the implications of modernism” and were often working within a Marxist context. Once it established a foothold, theory “disseminated itself into the avant-garde and into university humanities departments.