Gothic as the First Avant-Garde Art

If avant-garde means an anti-conventional passion for change and renewal in any art form, then the Gothic can be considered the first avant-garde art. Many modern art movements have much in common with the Gothic: the same interest in the collapse of traditional values of authoritarian systems, the desire to transgress and escape from conventional processes of representation, a curiosity about irrational and perverse impulses inherited from the primitive man. Throughout its history, the Gothic has also been an anti-realist protest, a rebellion of the imagination, an aesthetic of excess. Some contemporary artists, such as Mike Kelley, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin or Douglas Gordon, produce their works not only as expressions of profound transformations in artistic practices, but also as manifestations of contemporary fears. Horror still connects us to our primal emotions and desires. Perhaps this is why some of the most innovative works in contemporary art are often Gothic art.