Stirling Newberry to Bill Pirkle:

>The best way to think of an avant-garde is one which is self-consciously
>aware of attempting to create difference. Hence when Wagner declares that
>only the artist of the future can experience the life of the future, he is
>being an avant-gardist in his own time.

The example is right, but something lacks to the definition.  Avant-garde
implies a full ideological structure lying beneath this attempt of creating
difference:  the self-consciousness (almost paranoia) comes precisely from
that.  For a full ideological structure I mean a theory about how does
*every* aspect of the world should be.  An avant-gardist is always giving
explanations about his work.  In his language, an explanation is equal
to a prophecy, because he has also a theory about History.  In fact,
avant-garde could be defined as a particular state of mind in which the
patient knows (or believes to know) his own place in History and
consequently struggle for it.

Pablo Massa
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