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  • Avantgarde und Modernismus. Dezentrierung, Subversion und Transformation im literarisch-künstlerischen Feld ed. by Wolfgang Asholt
  • Sage Anderson
Avantgarde und Modernismus. Dezentrierung, Subversion und Transformation im literarisch-künstlerischen Feld. Edited by Wolfgang Asholt. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Pp. viii + 360. Cloth $140.00. ISBN 978-3110348330.

The popularity of "avant-garde" as a cultural qualifier belies the ambivalence of the term's conceptual legacy. Connotations of innovation clash with associations of frustration and failure, not only when it comes to the artistic production of so-called historical avant-gardes, but also with respect to subsequent theoretical invocations. Far from offering an introduction, this volume serves as a continuation of scholarly debates about the contemporary relevance of the avant-garde as a concept within and beyond aesthetic spheres; it will thus be of greatest interest to specialists. Edited by Wolfang Asholt, Avantgarde und Modernismus follows two volumes edited by Asholt and Walter Fähnders: "Die ganze Welt ist eine Manifestation": Die europäische Avantgarde und ihre Manifeste (1997), and Der Blick vom Wolkenkratzer. Avantgarde, Avantgardekritik, Avantgardeforschung (2000). Where the former is oriented by genre, and the latter focuses on Theoriebildung, the current volume revolves around the question: "Was bleibt vom Avantgarde-Projekt?" This and related questions posed by Asholt in his short introduction provide impetus for the seventeen articles that make up the book, the result of a conference held at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies in June 2012.

While the conjunction of avant-garde and modernism staged by the collection's title is thematized by some contributors, emphasis remains on the status of the avant-garde beyond its historical heyday. The volume is predominantly concerned with western European contexts, with exceptions concentrated in the central section, "Dezentrierungen der Avantgarden." Otherwise, this reviewer did not find the book's organization into three sections particularly useful for orientation. More helpful are questions that recur throughout, such as the one reiterated by Asholt in his closing [End Page 430] article, "Nach Altern und Scheitern: Brauchen wir noch eine Avantgarde-Theorie?" Before suggesting an affirmative, if qualified, answer, Asholt focuses on the difference between theories of the avant-garde and poststructuralist theory, which he locates "im Risiko der Verbindung von ästhetischer Erfahrung und Lebenspraxis" (340). Asholt highlights the avant-garde readiness to risk connection in the name of change as a legacy worth perpetuating in altered form. "Oder anders gesagt: die Veränderung der Lebenspraxis soll von Literatur und Kunst ausgehen und bedarf ihrer" (340). Ottmar Ette also questions the relationship between "Theorie der Avantgarde" and "Avantgarde der Theorie" in his article on "Nanotheorie." Ette considers Lévi-Strauss's notion of the artwork as modèle réduit along with relational geography of islands in order to indicate how theoretical landscapes might yet be remapped, analyzing the "microtexts" of Roland Barthes as an example of avant-garde potential transformed through a writing practice of constant reconfiguration. Christine Magerski provides a different take on the possibility of avant-garde theory today, focusing on the cultural implications of past artistic paradigms. Her account of the treatment of art in the social theories of Reckwitz, Bourdieu, Luhmann, and Gehlen convincingly demonstrates how the avant-garde is "nicht nur ein Teil der Genese moderner Kunst, sondern vielmehr ein konstitutives Element unserer Gegenwartsgesellschaft" (292). These and other responses indicate that the continued relevance of the avant-garde is contingent upon a renegotiation of its place in larger theoretical frameworks.

Several accounts devoted to the constitution and dissolution of specific historical movements help to situate the concept of the avant-garde, which at times throughout the volume becomes frustratingly general. One of the few to focus on the 1920s, Aage A. Hansen-Löve looks at the logic of endings that uncomfortably underlies artistic programs based on perpetual beginning. Working through late phases of the Russian avant-garde with close readings of texts by, among others, Chlebinikov, Mandelstam, Charms, and Platonov, Hansen-Löve shows how figures of death gain dominance. Thomas Pavel provides useful prehistory by framing his critique of Clement Greenberg's influential 1939 dichotomy between avant-garde and kitsch with an account of pre-twentieth-century attitudes toward artistic accomplishment. He thus...

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