Fostering the Avant-Garde Within

Abstract

In the final analysis, this paper is about the importance of the disciplined, focused, creative self. Although little else about this matter will be mentioned in the rest of the paper, it is hoped that the conclusion will speak for itself.

The paper begins with the assertion that the avant-garde is dead. It has become a symptom of and not a fighter against the evils of the times and has consequently been consumed by the times. In the final accounting, the avant-garde must accept responsibility for incorporating the battle to maintain the creative, independent self into the institutions of the times. The paper then elaborates briefly on the nature of current times—the postmodern scene—and identifies the status of landscape as garden in this scene. The paper concludes with three main points. First, it argues that the current avant-garde-like activities of the “artistic” communities are misplaced and, as such, confuse the nature of the battle facing landscape architecture in the creation of new gardens that reconcile humans, nature, and experience. Second, it asserts that the split between art and design remains, and consequently only design is relevant to the resolution of the battle. Finally, it suggests that, in order to win the battle to maintain our sense of wonder in the possibilities of existence, we need to foster those basic avant-garde-like tendencies that have always been a part of the landscape architectural profession. In this manner only may we succeed in the most difficult of all battles, the deinstitutionalizing of the battle itself.