THE SPECIFIC OF MODERN ARTISTRY PARADIGM

Art as a human activity has always been part of human activity. It has developed together with humanity and its interest in expressing spiritual needs in multitudes of forms. From a historical point of view, these spiritually originated objects largely pleased the senses and evoked different responses in the consumer. They are, to a large extent, a reflection of development and ideas of beauty as well as human emotions.  However, quite likely as a response to the devastation of two world wars that caused enormous suffering and destruction as well as the rise of entirely opposite social systems separated by ideologies, the second half of the XX century witnessed the birth of a new art-making concept. Avant-garde, as it was called, gave and is still giving a signal for a counter-run defying well-established theory and practice. For instance, Dadaism with the variety and ambiguity observed in the different procedural means to achieve artwork, as well as the directions they signal, pose quite a difficult problem for their inclusion within a specific art paradigm if philosophers constraint their ideas to what is conceived as art as a historical category. Much the same could be said about the conceptual framework advanced by J. Cage, M. Kagel, and K. Stockhausen, just three of the many representatives of the movement, that see art far from what was widely accepted as such. Many, from the consumers’ point of view, as well as not few in the art world, do not seem to understand this new paradigm, its ideas, theory, and practice. The present paper systematizes some of the main manifestations, characteristics as well as the essence of the avant-garde as a well-established movement and advocates for its recognition as different from mainstream art concepts.