The End of the American Avant Garde. Stuart D. Hobbs

"By 1966, the composer Virgil Thomson would write, «Truth is, there is no avant-garde today.» How did the avant garde dissolve, and why? In this thought-provoking work, Stuart D. Hobbs traces the avant garde from its origins to its eventual appropriation by a conservative political agenda, consumer culture, and the institutional world of art.