
Avant-garde (French pronunciation:[avɑ̃ɡaʁd]) isFrench for "vanguard".[1] The term is commonly used in French, English, and German to refer to people or works that areexperimental or innovative, particularly with respect toart andculture.
Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as thenorm or thestatus quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark ofmodernism, as distinct frompostmodernism. Postmodernism posits that the age of the constant pushing of boundaries is no longer with us and that avant-garde has little to no applicability in the age ofPostmodern art.















Rauschenberg's mammoth careerretrospective at theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum (and other New York sites) from Sept. 19 to Jan. 7, 1998... along with longtime friends pre-Pop painterJasper Johns and the late conceptual composerJohn Cage, Rauschenberg pretty much defined the technical and philosophic art landscape and its offshoots afterAbstract Expressionism.