Avant-garde () is

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

for "vanguard". The term is commonly used in French, English, and German to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art and culture. Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the

norm Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...

or the

status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...

, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

. 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 of Postmodern art.

Visual artists

Portrait of Joan Miro, Barcelona 1935 June 13

Pierre Alechinsky Pierre Alechinsky (born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction. Life Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek. In 1944 he att ...

( Belgian artist, member of CoBrA) * Alexander Archipenko (Ukrainian sculptor) * Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish sculptor) * Hans Bellmer (German artist) * Joseph Beuys (German artist) *

Francisco Bores Francisco Bores (Madrid, May 6, 1898 - Paris, May 10, 1972) was an important figure of twentieth-century European art. His presence was fundamental in the second wave of Spanish artists who arrived in Paris in the 1920s, in which he included Pablo P ...

(Spanish painter) *

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian Sculpture, sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of ...

(Romanian sculptor)"Constantin Brancusi"
at brainjuice.com. (Accessed March 27, 2007.) *

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

(French painter) *

David Burliuk David Davidovich Burliuk (Давид Давидович Бурлюк; 21 July 1882 – 15 January 1967) was a Russian-language poet, artist and publicist associated with the Futurist and Neo-Primitivist movements. Burliuk has been described as ...

(Ukrainian painter, illustrator) *

Wladimir Burliuk Wladimir Davydovych Burliuk (russian: Владимир Давидович Бурлюк; – 1917) was a Russian avant-garde artist (Neo-Primitivist and Cubo-Futurist) and book illustrator. He died at the age of 32 in 1917 in World War I. Biograp ...

(illustrator, Jack of Diamonds) * Giorgio de Chirico (painter) *

Joseph Csaky Joseph Csaky (also written Josef Csàky, Csáky József, József Csáky and Joseph Alexandre Czaky) (18 March 1888 – 1 May 1971) was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, best known for his early participation in the ...

(Hungarian-French sculptor) * Salvador Dalí (Spanish painter) * Theo van Doesburg (Dutch artist) the founder of De Stijl. * Jean Dubuffet (French painter) * Marcel Duchamp (French artist) * Naum Gabo (sculptor) * Pablo Gargallo (Spanish sculptor) * Paul Gauguin *

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

(sculptor) * Albert Gleizes (French painter and theorist) * Julio González (Spanish sculptor) * Natalia Goncharova (Russian painter) * Arshile Gorky (painter) *

George Grosz George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objec ...

(German painter) *

Neil Harbisson Neil Harbisson (27 July 1982) is a Catalan-born British-Irish-American cyborg artist and activist for transpecies rights. He is best known for being the first person in the world with an antenna implanted in his skull. Since 2004, internation ...

(English artist) * Asger Jorn (Danish artist, member of CoBrA) * Wassily Kandinsky (Russian artist) * Allan Kaprow (painter/happenings) *

Roger Kemp Francis Roderick Kemp AO, OBE, (Eaglehawk, 3 July 1908 - Melbourne 14 September 1987), known as Roger, was one of Australia's foremost practitioners of transcendental abstraction. Kemp developed a system of symbols and motifs which were deployed ...

(Pioneer Australian abstractionist) * Frederick John Kiesler (designer), (sculptor), (visual artist) * Willem de Kooning (painter) *

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes ...

(Japanese artist and writer) *

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

(painter) * El Lissitzky (Russian artist) *

Kazimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich ; german: Kasimir Malewitsch; pl, Kazimierz Malewicz; russian: Казими́р Севери́нович Мале́вич ; uk, Казимир Северинович Малевич, translit=Kazymyr Severynovych ...

(Ukrainian artist) * Agnes Martin (painter) * Henri Matisse (painter) * Jean Metzinger (French painter and theorist) *

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

(Spanish painter and sculptor) *

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being ...

(Dutch artist) *

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

(sculptor) *

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...

(painter) * Georgia O'Keeffe (American artist) * Claes Oldenburg (sculptor) * Yoko Ono (Japanese-American sculptor/installation artist/musician) *

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

(painter) * Pablo Picasso (Spanish painter and sculptor) * Antoine Pevsner (sculptor) * Jackson Pollock (painter)Piper, David. ''The Illustrated History of Art'', , p460-461. *

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

(painter) * Man Ray (painter and visual artist) *

Ad Reinhardt Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an abstract painter active in New York for more than three decades. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA) and part of the movement centere ...

(painter) * Jean-Paul Riopelle (Canadian artist) * Alexander Rodchenko (Russian artist) * Olga Rozanova (Russian artist) * Louis Schanker (American printmaker and sculptor) * Kurt Schwitters (German artist) * David Smith (American sculptor) *

Kenneth Snelson Kenneth Duane Snelson (June 29, 1927 – December 22, 2016) was an American contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity'. Snelson prefer ...

(sculptor) * Frank Stella (painter) * Vladimir Tatlin (Russian artist) * Remedios Varo (Mexican-Spanish painter) *

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...

(German Artist) * Andy Warhol (American painter and director) *

Wols Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (27 May 19131 September 1951), a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, he is considered a pioneer of lyrical abstracti ...

(German painter and photographer)

Architects

* Steve Baer *

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

* Norman Foster * Buckminster Fuller *

Antoni Gaudí Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect from Spain known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, ''sui generis'' style. Most are located in Barcel ...

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

* Walter Gropius * Mary Jordan (American performance artist) * Louis Kahn *

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a re ...

I. M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

* Eero Saarinen * Ettore Sottsass * Frank Lloyd Wright * Zaha Hadid

Performance artists

* Marina Abramović (Serbian performance artist) * Vito Acconci (American performance artist *

Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca (born 13 December 1959, in Moià, Barcelona) is an artist from Spain who uses digital technologies in the fields of mechatronic performance and installation art. Artistic career La Fura dels Baus (1979–1989) While ...

(Catalan performance artist) *

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

(American performance artist) *

Günter Brus Günter Brus (born 27 September 1938, Ardning, Styria, Austria) is an Austrian painter, performance artist, graphic artist, experimental filmmaker and writer. Brus grew up in Mureck, attended the Kunstgewerbeschule Graz and went to Vienna in 195 ...

(Austrian performance artist) * Marco Donnarumma (Italian performance artist) * Valie Export (Austrian performance artist) * Diamanda Galás (American performance artist) * Hermann Nitsch (Austrian performance artist) * Stelarc (Cyprus-born performance artist)

Musicians

* Laurie Anderson (American composer) * George Antheil (American composer) * Albert Ayler ( Free jazz) *

John Balance Geoffrey Nigel Laurence Rushton (16 February 1962 – 13 November 2004), better known under the pseudonyms John Balance or the later variation Jhonn Balance, was an English musician, occultist, artist and poet. He was best known as a co-founde ...

(Music Composer, poet) * The Beatles (English rock lyricists, composers, and singers) * Luciano Berio (Italian composer) * Arthur Brown (English rock singer and performer) *

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

(French composer) * David Bowie (English rock singer and performer) * Glenn Branca (American guitarist and composer) *

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...

(American musician and composer) * Harold Budd (American composer) *

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

(American composer) * Les Claypool (American musician, singer, bassist, film maker, novelist, composer) *

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...

(American jazz musician) * John Coltrane (American jazz musician) *

Anna Eriksson Anna Sofia Eriksson (born 22 April 1977) is a Finnish artist, filmmaker, composer, and singer. In September 2018, avantgarde film '' M'' directed and produced by Eriksson was having the world premiere at the Venice International Film Critics Wee ...

(Finnish composer) * Conlon Nancarrow (American composer) *

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both d ...

(American violinist and composer) * Ivor Cutler (Scottish avant-musician and poet) * Miles Davis (American jazz musician) *

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

(French composer) *

Eric Dolphy Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flautist. On a few occasions, he also played the clarinet and piccolo. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gai ...

(American jazz musician) *

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

(American jazz musician, band leader and composer) * Don Ellis (American jazz musician, band leader and composer) *

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

(English musician and composer) *

Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic music, electronic styles such as techno, ambient music, ambient, and jun ...

(British musician and composer) * Morton Feldman (American composer) * Brigitte Fontaine (French Singer, novelist, playwright and actress) *

Aaron Funk Aaron Funk (born January 11, 1975), known as Venetian Snares, is a Canadian electronic musician based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is widely known for innovating and popularising the breakcore genre, and is one of the most recognisable artists to b ...

(Canadian electronic musician) * Diamanda Galás (American musician, composer and performance artist) *

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

(American composer) * Dave Holland (British jazz musician) *

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...

(American composer) * Roland Kirk (American jazz musician) * Bill Laswell (avant-garde musician) * György Ligeti (Hungarian/Austrian/Romanian composer) * Witold Lutosławski (Polish composer) *

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

(Hungarian composer) * Lydia Lunch (American singer, poet, writer and actress) *

Angus MacLise Angus William MacLise (March 14, 1938 – June 21, 1979) was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher, known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground who abruptly quit due to disagreements with the band pla ...

(American percussionist) *

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and ...

(American jazz musician) * Thelonious Monk (American jazz musician) * Max Neuhaus (composer) * Mike Oldfield (English composer) *

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

(American composer and accordionist) * Yoko Ono (Japanese artist and musician) * Harry Partch (American composer and instrument designer) * Mike Patton (American musician, singer and composer) * Krzysztof Penderecki (Polish composer) * Astor Piazzolla (Argentine nuevo tango pioneer) *

Jarosław Pijarowski Jaroslaw Pijarowski (born 18 December 1971) is a Polish avant-garde artist, art curator and founder of Teatr Tworzenia (Theater of Creation). He creates contemporary music, poetry, photography, fine arts and theatre-music spectacles. Career He ...

(Polish contemporary musician, poet, photographer, creator of fine arts and theatre-music spectacles) * Sun Ra (Free jazz innovator) *

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

(American composer) * Terry Riley (American composer) *

Diana Ringo Diana Ringo (born 8 March 1992) is a Finnish film director, composer and visual artist. Her director debut is dystopian feature film drama ''Quarantine'' (2021) which was shortlisted for the 2022 Golden Globes as a foreign entry. She was also c ...

(Finnish composer) * Arthur Russell (American musician, singer and composer) *

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...

(American jazz musician) *

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

(French composer and pianist) *

Janek Schaefer Janek Schaefer (born 1970) is a British avant-garde artist, musician, composer, and entertainer, known for performing and exhibiting his work around the world with sound and installation art. Schaefer has released 36 albums, runs Lucky Dip Disco, ...

(English composer musician artist) * Pierre Schaeffer (French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician) *

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

(Austrian/American composer) * Archie Shepp (American jazz musician) * Karlheinz Stockhausen (German composer) *

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

(Russian composer) * David Tudor (American composer) *

Arto Tunçboyacıyan Arto Tunçboyacıyan ( hy, Արտո Թունջբոյաջյան; hyw, Արթօ Թունճպոյաճեան, Art'ō T'unjpoyajean; born August 4, 1957) is a United States-based avant-garde folk and jazz multi-instrumentalist and singer of Armenian ...

(Armenian vocalist, multiinstrumentalist) *

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined ...

(French composer, later naturalized American citizen) * David Vorhaus (American electronic composer with the English band White Noise) *

Igor Wakhévitch Igor Wakhévitch (born 12 May 1948) is an avant-garde French composer. He released a series of studio albums in the 1970s and collaborated with Salvador Dalí in 1974. From the age of eight, Wakhévitch was taught the piano by French classical pia ...

(French composer) * Anton Webern (

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School (german: Zweite Wiener Schule, Neue Wiener Schule) was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. ...

) *

Robert Wyatt Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945) is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming para ...

(English singer and songwriter) * Iannis Xenakis (Greek composer and architect) *

Kathleen Yearwood Kathleen Yearwood is a Canadian experimental singer-songwriter and author, born in 1958. From Subterranean Records description of Kathleen Yearwood: :This powerful and very radical Canadian artist and her music have been described variously as ...

(Canadian composer) *

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...

(American composer) *

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...

(American composer, guitarist and satirist) Neumos seattle 2008

* Autopsia (ex-Yugoslavian/Czech post-industrial band) * Amon Düül II (German krautrock band) * Arcturus (Norwegian avant-garde band) * Maya Beiser (experimental cellist) *

Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet (; born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as Th ...

(experimental rock singer) *

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan’s noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

(Japanese noise band) *

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

(Icelandic musician) * Buckethead (American composer and guitarist) *

Butthole Surfers Butthole Surfers are an American rock band formed in San Antonio, Texas, by singer Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been ...

(American experimental rock band) *

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...

(Welsh avant-garde musician) *

Can Can may refer to: Containers * Aluminum can * Drink can * Oil can * Steel and tin cans * Trash can * Petrol can * Metal can (disambiguation) Music * Can (band), West Germany, 1968 ** ''Can'' (album), 1979 * Can (South Korean band) Other * C ...

(avant-garde rock band) * Coil (British electronic post-industrial band) *

Cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study t ...

(German krautrock group) * Einstürzende Neubauten (German industrial band) * Fantômas (American noise metal band) * Faust (German krautrock band) *

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...

(English avant-garde/psychedelic/art rock Band) * Gong (French-English avant-garde/progressive rock band) *

Half Japanese Half Japanese is an American art punk band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair around 1975, sometime after the family's relocation to Uniontown, Maryland. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playi ...

(American alternative band) * Hella (band) (American avant-garde/experimental band) * Henry Cow (British avant-garde/progressive rock band) * Iwrestledabearonce (American progressive/avant-garde metal band) * Jonathan Davis and the SFA (American avant-garde band) *

Kayo Dot Kayo Dot is an American avant-garde metal group. Formed in 2003 by Toby Driver after the break-up of ''maudlin of the Well'', they released their debut album ''Choirs of the Eye'' on John Zorn's Tzadik Records that same year. Since then, Kayo ...

(American avant-rock/metal band) *

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the ...

(German electronic/krautrock group) * Laibach (Slovenian experimental/avant-garde/industrial music group) * The Mars Volta (American experimental/fusion rock band) *

Melvins Melvins (sometimes The Melvins) are an American rock band formed in 1983 in Montesano, Washington. Their early work was key to the development of both grunge and sludge metal. Initially, they performed as a trio but later also sometimes appeare ...

(American experimental rock band) * Meshuggah (Swedish experimental/progressive metal band) *

Moondog Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self-taught as a composer, his ...

(American avant-garde artist) * Neurosis (American sludge/drone/post-metal band) * The Observatory (Singaporean experimental rock band) * Ours to Destroy (avant-garde folk rock band) *

Pan.Thy.Monium Pan.Thy.Monium was a Swedish avant-garde metal band formed and led by Dan Swanö with several members from another project of his, Edge of Sanity. The group disbanded in 1996, after recording ''Khaooohs and Kon-Fus-Ion''. The band wanted this la ...

(Swedish progressive metal band) * Pere Ubu (American post-punk band) * Art Bears (British avant-rock band) * Public Image Ltd (British post-punk band) * Ram-Zet (Norwegian avant-garde metal band) * Rasputina (experimental rock band) *

Recoil (band) Recoil is a musical project created by English musician and former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder. Essentially a solo venture, Recoil began whilst Wilder was still in Depeche Mode as an outlet for his experimental, less pop-oriented compositio ...

(British avant-garde/electronic musical project) *

The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vi ...

(American avant-rock band) * Scars on Broadway (Experimental rock band) * Scott Walker (American experimental avant-garde pop musician) *

Sigh Paralanguage, also known as vocalics, is a component of meta-communication that may modify meaning, give nuanced meaning, or convey emotion, by using techniques such as prosody, pitch, volume, intonation, etc. It is sometimes defined as relatin ...

(Japanese

progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...

/ avant-garde

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...

band) *

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (often abbreviated to SGM) was an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fused classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music. They were known to perform elabo ...

(American

avant-garde metal Avant-garde metal (also known as avant-metal, experimental metal, and experimental) is a subgenre of heavy metal music loosely defined by use of experimentation and innovative, avant-garde elements, including non-standard and unconventional soun ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

group) *

Soft Machine Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge (keyboards, 1966–1976), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals, 1966–1971), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals, 1966–1968) and Daevid Allen (guitar, 1966–196 ...

(English avant-garde/progressive rock band) *

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

(American alternative band) *

Sunn O))) Sunn O))) (pronounced "sun") is an American experimental metal band formed in 1998 in Seattle, Washington. The band is known for their distinctive visual style and slow, heavy sound, which blends diverse genres including doom metal, drone, bla ...

(American drone/metal/ambient band) * Swans (American post-punk/No Wave band) *

Throbbing Gristle Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in 1975 in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter (British musician), Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pi ...

(English industrial band) *

Mr. Bungle Mr. Bungle is an American experimental rock band formed in Eureka, California in 1985. Having gone through many incarnations throughout their career, the band is best known for music created during their most experimental era. During this time, ...

(American

group) * The Velvet Underground (American art/protopunk band) *

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

(American alternative/avant-garde/protopunk musician) * Patti Smith (American protopunk singer) *

Vernian Process Vernian Process is an American band formed in San Francisco in 2003. Taking its name from the works of 19th century author Jules Verne, Vernian Process is a band that creates music themed around Victorian scientific romance and its modern counte ...

(American steampunk/avant-garde band) * Už jsme doma (Czech avant-garde band) * What's He Building in There? (Canadian

group) * Waltari (Finnish

/ avant-garde/ alternative metal band) *

John Bruce Wallace John Bruce Wallace is an American composer and avant-garde, free jazz, fusion, experimental, improvisational progressive metal guitarist. Early life John Bruce Wallace a/k/a jacewbal was born February 6, 1950, in Calais, Maine, United States. ...

(American composer and avant-garde, free jazz, fusion, experimental, improvisational progressive metal guitarist)

Authors, playwrights, actors, theatre directors and poets

JoAnne Akalaitis JoAnne Akalaitis (born June 29, 1937, in Cicero, Illinois) is an avant-garde Lithuanian-American theatre director and writer. She won five Obie Awards for direction (and sustained achievement) and was founder in 1970 of the critically acclaimed M ...

(writer/director/ Mabou Mines) * Guillaume Apollinaire (writer) *

Antonin Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...

(French actor, director and theorist) * H. C. Artmann (Austrian-born poet and writer) * Hugo Ball (German writer, dadaist) * J. G. Ballard (British author) *

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...

(French writer and essayist) * Julian Beck (actor/director/ The Living Theatre) *

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

(Irish playwright) * Maurice Blanchot (French writer and essayist) * Jorge Luis Borges (Argentine short story writer) *

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

(French author) *

Hermann Broch Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and ''The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945). ...

(Austrian writer) * Christine Brooke-Rose (British writer and literary critic) * William S. Burroughs (author, poet, essayist) * Jim Carroll (avant-garde poet) * Louis-Ferdinand Céline (author) * Gregory Corso (experimental Beat poet) * Jayne Cortez (American poet and spoken-word artist) *

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

(poet) * Jeffrey Daniels (American Poet) *

Guy Debord Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationis ...

(French author, and philosopher) * John Dos Passos (American writer) *

Duncan Fallowell Duncan Fallowell (born 1948) is an English novelist, travel writer, memoirist, journalist and critic. Early life Fallowell was born on 26 September 1948 in London. His family later moved to Somerset and Essex before settling in Berkshire. While ...

(English writer) * Benjamin Fondane (Romanian/French poet, critic, existentialist philosopher) *

Richard Foreman Richard Foreman (born June 10, 1937 in New York City) is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Achievements and awards Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, b ...

(American Director/designer/playwright/compositional theater maker) *

Genpei Akasegawa was a pseudonym of Japanese artist , born March 27, 1937 – October 26, 2014 in Yokohama. He used another pseudonym, , for literary works. A member of the influential artist groups Neo-Dada Organizers and Hi-Red Center, Akasegawa went on to ma ...

(Japanese artist and novelist) * Allen Ginsberg (poet) * Witold Gombrowicz (writer) * Eugen Gomringer (the father of concrete poetry) * Jerzy Grotowski (director) * Stewart Home (writer) *

Per Højholt Per Højholt (22 July 1928 – 15 October 2004) was a Denmark, Danish poet. Højholt had his debut in 1948 when he published "De nøgne" (The Naked Ones), a series of poems which appeared in the magazine ''Heretica''. His first collection was ''Hes ...

(Danish poet) * Ernst Jandl (Austrian writer, poet, and translator) *

Alfred Jarry Alfred Jarry (; 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play ''Ubu Roi'' (1896). He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics. Jarry was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, ...

(writer) * James Joyce (writer) * Franz Kafka (writer) * Tadeusz Kantor (director) * Lajos Kassák (1887–1967, Hungarian avant-garde poet and painter) *

Srečko Kosovel Srečko Kosovel () (18 March 1904 – 26 May 1926) was a Slovenian poet, now considered one of central Europe's major modernist poets.

(Slovene poet) *

Peter Laugesen Peter Laugesen (born 5 March 1942 in Copenhagen) is a Danish poet and playwright and was member of the Situationist International. Peter Laugesen lives in Aarhus and he graduated from Aarhus Cathedral School in 1961 and trained as a typograph ...

(Danish poet) *

Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...

, American poet * Mina Loy (British painter/poet) * Dimitris Lyacos (writer/playwright/poet) * Judith Malina (actor/director/ The Living Theatre) * Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (founder of Italian

futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...

) * Vladimir Mayakovsky (Russian futurist writer and poet) * Vsevolod Meyerhold (director) * Henry Miller (author) *

Ion Minulescu Ion Minulescu (; 6 January 1881 – 11 April 1944) was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonyms I. M. Nirvan and Koh-i-Noor (the latte ...

(Romanian poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, playwright) * Yukio Mishima (writer, playwright, poet) * Vladimir Nabokov (Russian author) *

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

(French diarist, author, poet) *

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

(American poet) * Alain Robbe-Grillet (French author, playwright, filmmaker) * Raymond Roussel (writer) * Bruno Schulz (writer) * Kirill Serebrennikov (Russian theater director) * Gertrude Stein (author, essayist) * Ellen Stewart (theater director/ La MaMa) *

Jean Tardieu Jean Tardieu (born in Saint-Germain-de-Joux, Ain, 1 November 1903, died in Créteil, Val-de-Marne, 27 January 1995) was a French artist, musician, poet and dramatic author. Life and career He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publi ...

(artist, playwright, poet) * Sergei Tretyakov (Russian writer) * Tristan Tzara (Romanian poet) *

Urmuz Urmuz (, pen name of Demetru Dem. Demetrescu-Buzău, also known as Hurmuz or Ciriviș, born Dimitrie Dim. Ionescu-Buzeu; March 17, 1883 – November 23, 1923) was a Romanian writer, lawyer and civil servant, who became a cult hero in Romania's ava ...

(Romanian writer) * Ilarie Voronca (Romanian poet, essayist) * William Carlos Williams (American poet) *

Miroslav Wanek Miroslav Wanek (, born 7 April 1962) is a Czech musician, poet, and lyricist. He is the frontman for the avant-garde punk rock group Už jsme doma, in which he has served as lead vocalist since 1986, bassist from 1986 to 1988, guitarist and k ...

(Czech composer, poet, singer) * Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (writer) * Robert Wilson (director) * Virginia Woolf (English author)

Photographers, filmmakers, video artists

* John Abraham (Indian movie director) * Kenneth Anger (American filmmaker) * Diane Arbus (American photographer) *

Berenice Abbott Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of between-the-wars 20th century cultural figures, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and ...

(American photographer) * Bruce Baillie (American filmmaker) *

Craig Baldwin Craig Baldwin (born 1952) is an American experimental filmmaker. He uses found footage from the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from the mass media to undermine and transform the traditional documentary, infusing it with the ...

(American filmmaker) *

(American performance artist, filmmaker, photographer) * Timur Bekmambetov (Russian filmmaker) *

Jordan Belson Jordan Belson (June 6, 1926 – September 6, 2011) was an American artist and abstract cinematic filmmaker who created nonobjective, often spiritually oriented, abstract films spanning six decades. Biography Belson was born in Chicago, Illinois. ...

(American filmmaker) * Patrick Bokanowski (French filmmaker) * Stan Brakhage (American filmmaker) * Luis Buñuel (Spanish filmmaker) * John Cassavetes (American filmmaker) * Věra Chytilová (Czech filmmaker) * Jean Cocteau (French poet, artist, filmmaker) * Bruce Conner (American filmmaker, sculptor, and painter) *

(American video artist, experimental filmmaker) *

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...

(American filmmaker) * Maya Deren (American filmmaker) *

Nathaniel Dorsky Nathaniel Dorsky (born 1943 in New York City), is an American experimental filmmaker and film editor who has been making films since 1963. He attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he developed his interest in filmmaking. He won a ...

(American filmmaker) * Germaine Dulac (French filmmaker) *

(Finnish filmmaker) *

Harun Farocki Harun Farocki (9 January 1944 – 30 July 2014) was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film. Early life and education Farocki was born as Harun El Usman FaroqhiMargalit Fox (3 August 2014)''New York Times''. in Neutitschein, which is n ...

(German filmmaker) * Rainer Werner Fassbinder (German filmmaker) *

David Gatten David Edward Gatten (Born February 11, 1971 Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American experimental filmmaker and moving image artist. Since 1996 Gatten's films have explored the intersection of the printed word and moving image, cataloging the varie ...

(American filmmaker) * Ernie Gehr (American filmmaker) *

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran� ...

(French filmmaker) * Larry Gottheim (American filmmaker) *

Philippe Grandrieux Philippe Grandrieux (born 10 November 1954) is a French film director and screenwriter. Life and career Grandrieux was born in Saint-Étienne. He studied film at the INSAS (Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle) in Belgium. He exhi ...

(French filmmaker) * Jerome Hiler (American filmmaker) * Peter Hutton (American filmmaker) *

Ken Jacobs Ken Jacobs (born May 25, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American experimental filmmaker. His style often involves the use of found footage which he edits and manipulates. He has also directed films using his own footage. Ken Jacobs directed ...

(American filmmaker) * Alejandro Jodorowsky (Chilean director) * Mary Jordan (American filmmaker, performance artist, activist) *

Jaromil Jireš Jaromil Jireš (10 December 1935 – 24 October 2001) was a director associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave movement. His 1963 film '' The Cry'' was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. It is often described as the first film of the Cze ...

(Czechoslovak filmmaker) * Harmony Korine (American filmmaker) *

Kurt Kren Kurt Kren (born 20 September 1929; died 23 June 1998 in Vienna) was an Austrian avant-garde filmmaker. He is best known for his involvement with the Vienna Aktionists and the group of films that resulted, although this accounts for only a part of ...

(Austrian filmmaker) *

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

(American filmmaker) * Peter Kubelka (Austrian filmmaker) * Jørgen Leth (Danish filmmaker) * Len Lye (New Zealand filmmaker) *

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

(American filmmaker) *

Jodie Mack Jodie Mack (born January 16, 1983, in London, England) is an English-born American experimental filmmaker and animator. She attended the University of Florida and earned her MFA in film, video, and new media at the School of the Art Institute of ...

(American filmmaker) *

Christopher Maclaine Christopher Maclaine (born Clifford Vernard McClain; July 27, 1923 – April 6, 1975) was an American poet and filmmaker. Early life Maclaine was born July 27, 1923 in Wapanucka, Oklahoma. His family was of Scottish descent. He attended the Unive ...

(American filmmaker) *

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

(American photographer) *

Toshio Matsumoto (25 March 1932 – 12 April 2017) was a Japanese film director and video artist. Biography Matsumoto was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan and graduated from Tokyo University in 1955. His first short was '' Ginrin'', which he made in 1 ...

(Japanese experimental filmmaker‚ video artist) * Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian-American filmmaker) *

Otto Muehl Otto Muehl (16 June 1925 – 26 May 2013) was an Austrian artist, who was known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism and for founding the Friedrichshof Commune. In 1943, Muehl had to serve in the German ...

(Austrian filmmaker) * Dudley Murphy (Experimental filmmaker) *

Ryūtarō Nakamura was a Japanese director and animator, best known for directing the landmark anime series ''Serial Experiments Lain'', and for his collaboration with Masamune Shirow and Chiaki J. Konaka on ''Ghost Hound''. Death In 2009, it was announced that h ...

(Japanese director and animator) *

Gunvor Nelson Swedish artist Gunvor Grundel Nelson was born in 1931 in Kristinehamn, Sweden, where she now resides. She has worked as an experimental filmmaker since the 1960s. Some of her most widely known works were created while she lived in the Bay Area in ...

(Swedish filmmaker) * Nikos Nikolaidis (Greek filmmaker) *

Andrew Noren Andrew Noren (1943–May 2, 2015) was an American avant-garde filmmaker. Biography Andrew Noren was born 1943 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and grew up in Southern California. Noren moved to New York in the mid 1960s, where he worked as an editor at AB ...

(American filmmaker) *

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including ''Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer'' (1984), ''Angel's Egg'' (1985), ...

(Japanese filmmaker) * Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italian filmmaker, poet and writer) *

Simone Rapisarda Casanova Simone Rapisarda Casanova is an Italian experimental filmmaker currently living in Canada. In 2014 he won the Leopard for Best Emerging Director at the Locarno International Film Festival. Life Rapisarda Casanova was born in Catania, Italy. H ...

(Italian filmmaker) * Man Ray (American/French, photographer and filmmaker) * Alain Resnais (French filmmaker) *

(Finnish filmmaker) * Jacques Rivette (French filmmaker) * Jean Rouch (Ethnographic filmmaker) * Rudolf Schwarzkogler (Austrian filmmaker) * Kirill Serebrennikov (Russian filmmaker) * Jack Smith (American filmmaker) * Michael Snow (Canadian artist, filmmaker) * Sion Sono (Japanese filmmaker, dramatist and poet) *

Straub–Huillet Jean-Marie Straub (; 8 January 1933 — 20 November 2022) and Danièle Huillet (; 1 May 1936 – 9 October 2006) were a duo of French filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006. Their films are noted for their rigorous, intelle ...

(French filmmakers) * Phil Solomon (American filmmaker) *

Léopold Survage Léopold Frédéric Léopoldowitsch Survage (31 July 1879 – 31 October 1968) was a French painter of Finnish origin. Trained in Moscow, he identified with the Russian avant-garde before moving to Paris, where he shared a studio with Amedeo Modi ...

(French artist of Russian-Danish-Finnish descent) * Shūji Terayama (Japanese dramatist, filmmaker, poet and writer) * Lars von Trier (Danish filmmaker) * Andy Warhol (American artist) * Peter Weibel (Austrian filmmaker) * Joel-Peter Witkin (American photographer) *

Fred Worden Fred Worden, filmmaker, has been involved in experimental cinema since the 1970s. His work has been screened at The Museum of Modern Art, in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, The Centre Pompidou, in Paris, The Pacific Film Archive, The New York Film Fe ...

(American filmmaker) * Kansuke Yamamoto (Japanese photographer and poet) *

Thierry Zéno Thierry Zéno (born Thierry Jonard; 22 April 1950 – 7 June 2017)
, retrieved 10 May 2009. was a

* Pina Bausch (German dancer, choreographer) *

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers ...

(American dancer, choreographer) *

Lucinda Childs Lucinda Childs (born June 26, 1940) is an American postmodern dancer/ choreographer and actress. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest mov ...

(American dancer, choreographer) * Merce Cunningham (American dancer, choreographer) * Isadora Duncan (pioneer of modern dance) * Loie Fuller (pioneer of modern dance) * Valeska Gert (1892–1978) (German dancer)"The Forgotten World of the Badass Valeska Gert"
by Elyssa Goodman, ''

Tablet Tablet may refer to: Medicine * Tablet (pharmacy), a mixture of pharmacological substances pressed into a small cake or bar, colloquially called a "pill" Computing * Tablet computer, a mobile computer that is primarily operated by touching the s ...

'', 11 January 2018 *

Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She wa ...

(American dancer, choreographer) * Sally Gross (American dancer, choreographer) * Deborah Hay (American dancer, choreographer) * Anna Halprin (American dancer, choreographer) * Erick Hawkins (American dancer, choreographer) *

Hanya Holm Hanya Holm (born Johanna Eckert; 3 March 1893 – 3 November 1992) is known as one of the "Big Four" founders of American modern dance. She was a dancer, choreographer, and above all, a dance educator. Early life, connection with Mary Wigman Bo ...

(pioneer of modern dance) * Doris Humphrey (pioneer of modern dance) *

Léonide Massine Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (russian: Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син), better known in the West by the French transliteration as Léonide Massine (15 March 1979), was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. Massine created the wo ...

(pioneer of modern dance) * Vaslav Nijinsky (pioneer of modern dance) *

Alwin Nikolais Alwin Nikolais (November 25, 1910 – May 8, 1993) was an American choreographer, dancer, composer, musician, teacher. He had created the Nikolais Dance Theatre, and was best known for his self-designed innovative costume, lighting and production d ...

(American dancer, choreographer) * Yvonne Rainer (American dancer, choreographer) *

Ruth St. Denis Ruth St. Denis (born Ruth Denis; January 20, 1879 – July 21, 1968) was an American pioneer of modern dance, introducing eastern ideas into the art. She was the co-founder of the American Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts and the teac ...

(pioneer of modern dance) *

Ted Shawn Ted Shawn (born Edwin Myers Shawn; October 21, 1891 – January 9, 1972) was a male pioneer of American modern dance. He created the Denishawn School together with his wife Ruth St. Denis. After their separation he created the all-male company Te ...

(pioneer of modern dance) * Anna Sokolow (American dancer, choreographer) *

Helen Tamiris Helen Tamiris (born Helen Becker; April 24, 1905 – August 4, 1966) was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher. Biography Tamiris was born in New York City on April 23, 1902. She adopted Tamiris, her stage name, from a fragment ...

(pioneer of modern dance) * Twyla Tharp (American choreographer, dancer) *

Charles Weidman Charles Weidman (July 22, 1901 – July 15, 1975) was a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of modern dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance f ...

(pioneer of modern dance) * Mary Wigman (German dancer, choreographer)

Others

* Yuri Landman (Experimental instrument builder)

References

External links

*
"Why did Soviet Photographic Avant-garde decline?"
by Giovanni De Caro, December 2001
"Avant-gard"
definition at the Tate {{Schools of poetry Avant-garde art Avant-garde

Visual artists

Architects

Performance artists

Musicians

Authors, playwrights, actors, theatre directors and poets

Photographers, filmmakers, video artists

Others

See also

References

Further reading

External links