Critical Hit: The Avant-Garde

Avant-Garde stands for innovation, pioneering, challenge and progression in all circles of the creative world. Although this meaning of “pushing things forward” may be clear, the knowledge of this description has been lost amidst globalization and capitalism intent on globally selling products of artistic value.Dotted throughout history are some of the most famous representations of avant-garde art, which in it’s day shocked and challenged cultural and sociological values. The term itself translates from French as the “advancing guard” – implying that this art strives to fight for something new and dedicate itself to radical ideas. Their art two directions which an artist can choose to embrace the avant-garde, either by producing work that is socially committed and enforces political mess,, or by producing art that only seeks to expand ideas of art itself, harking back to the phrase “art for art’s sake”.

David Carson stands as an “advancing guard” when challenging the conventions of legibility and readability in typography. Carson took experimental approaches to the treatment and arrangement of the letter and the word. This work was, and still is, seen as rebellious and controversial in the eyes of typographers and designers, much in the same way that Adbusters attempt to reverse the effects of advertising and capitalism on culture through the use of alternative visual language, guerilla art and viral campaigns that revolve from the centre of Adbuster's magazine.

Colours of Benetton