"Avant-gardes are by nature combative," Harold Rosenberg wrote. The uneasy relation between artists and society is sometimes replicated in the relationship between artists and their audience. The objective may be to shock the establishment, to shame it, to express outrage, or simply to exempt oneself from its strictures. By such measures, it may be argued, the avant-garde artist keeps the conscience of the time.
Lehman, David._The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York
School of Poets_. New York: Anchor, 1999.
