Avant-garde. The problem of naming

Abstract

The author proposes to consider the problem of naming an artistic event an avant-garde one from the perspective of Wittgenstein's philosophical strategy which consists in replacing the search for the essential truth of a phenomenon with the latter's “graphic” demonstration. Instead of inquiring into the deepest meaning of the word “avant-garde” it suffices, according to Wittgenstein, to number the contexts in which it is used and to delineate the boundaries beyond which the term “avant-garde”ceases to function and its usage in language constructions becomes unacceptable. Making up a grammar of the term “avant-garde” may help to clarify its idea.