avant-gardism

[uh-vahnt-gahr-diz-uhm, uh-vant-, av-ahnt-, ah-vahnt-]

noun

1. the attitudes, techniques, etc., of the cultural avant-garde.

Word History and Origins

Origin of avant-gardism¹

First recorded in 1945–50; avant-garde + -ism

Example Sentences

With chapters on Orthodox icons and Catholic cathedrals, Soviet avant-gardism and nationalist folk crafts, this book illustrates a culture whose very diversity now puts it in danger — and indeed some works pictured, such as stone statues near Kharkiv dating from the 9th to 13th century, have already been destroyed.

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The expressive modern dance and melodrama of Lorde and Mitski, the elegant, subtly ferocious avant-gardism of FKA Twigs, Perfume Genius and Julia Holter — Bush’s influence abounds.

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Gianvito’s formal approach is a species of leftist avant-gardism.

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But as much as I am generally allergic to deliberately obscure avant-gardism, the kind that sniffs at anyone who can’t unpack the meaning of a portmanteau title composed of “sprezzatura” and “Decameron,” I found something usefully troubling, and specifically theatrical, about this commission from the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

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This lush, insistent and elusive strangeness might push Williams out of the realist camp altogether, and land her in the once-overrun, now underpopulated zone of experimental fiction, the convention-smashing avant-gardism that the reticent realists of the ’80s were often seen as reacting against.

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