The Transvangarde

Gerald Wilde: Troll Scene, oil pastel on paper, 24.5" x 36", 1975

The October Gallery promotes the work of artists of the transvangarde - that is to say, the trans-cultural avant-garde. The word avant-garde has come to be used almost exclusively to describe western artists from Europe and the United States and makes little sense when talking about artists from Africa or from Papua New Guinea. The 'Nigerian avant-garde' sounds like a misnomer, and yet some of the most exciting contemporary art of the day is being produced in exactly those places that the western art-world considers to be 'peripheral,' far distant from its own 'central' position. With the word 'avant-garde' thus freighted with a set of subconscious prejudices as to the primacy of the western artistic tradition and therefore no longer appropriate for discussions of contemporary global art, the word transvangarde was coined to indicate the far more exciting notion of a trans-cultural avant-garde composed of cutting edge artists from all cultures around the planet. The transvangarde denotes a true vanguard of artists who, escaping from the boundary definitions of any single culture operate between and even beyond culture.

Transvangarde artists may, thus, be defined as artists working at the cutting edge of their own cultural traditions yet who are still alive to the cross-currents of change and experimentation occurring in the wider context of the contemporary art world at the dawn of this new millennium.

Some examples of transvangarde artists operating as interface agents of change in this exciting, cross-cultural arena are: Gerald Wilde (UK,) Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede (Nigeria,) Kenji Yoshida (Japan,) El Anatsui (Ghana,) William S. Burroughs (USA,) Julieta Rubio (Colombia,) Elisabeth Lalouschek (Austria,) and many others.

A new book, Art and Artists of the Transvangarde, dealing with the development of this loose affiliation of artists from around the world is to be published by the October Gallery in  2000.

[ Home ]

All the images and text on these web pages are copyright of the October Gallery.  © 2002