Avant-Garde

Catalog description

In art, the term avant-garde, coined in the late 19th century, refers to artists, movements, or works that deliberately break with established conventions to push aesthetic & conceptual boundaries, often provoking resistance or controversy precisely because they challenge prevailing ideas, processes, & forms. But what does it do to the avant-garde, a now enduring concept, to become canonical, thus turning its disruptive powers into its own category of aesthetic production, guarded, indeed, from institutional despise, & instead folded into recognition? This seminar traces the complicated history of avant-garde & experimental film from the early twentieth century to the present. Moving across European & global traditions, the course examines how filmmakers have challenged narrative, representation, & the limits of their medium through formal experimentation, material investigation, & political critique. Each week pairs a film w/theoretical & historical texts. In English.