Gail Day, Theories of the Avant-Garde Speaker: Gail Day, Senior Lecturer in art theory and history at Wimbledon School of Art and an editor of the Oxford Art Journal.This talk sets up the day's discussions by considering the interrelated concepts of the 'avant-garde' and 'neo-avant-garde'. While looking briefly at the origins of the concepts, and some of the confusions of terminology that are frequently encountered in the literature, the main focus of the talk will address the crucial role - ideological and aesthetic - that the idea of 'avant-gardism' has played within twentieth-century debates on art and culture, and which continues to be at issue among many contemporary artists. The key theories, critiques and accounts associated with the subject - including, inter alia, that of Peter Bürger - will be outlined and explored, and, as theories, situated historically.Further Reading Peter Bürger, extract from 'Theories of the Avant-Garde' (1974), in Steve Edwards, ed., Art and its Histories: A Reader, Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 216-220, or, with a different edit, in Jason Gaiger and Paul Wood, eds, Art of the Twentieth Century: A Reader, Yale University Press, 2003, pp. 56-62.Andreas Huyssen, 'extract from 'After the Great Divide' (1986), in Steve Edwards, ed., Art and its Histories: A Reader, Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 221-224.Benjamin Buchloh, extract from 'The Primary Colors for the Second Time: A Paradigm Repetition of the Neo-Avant-Garde' (1986), in Jason Gaiger and Paul Wood, eds, Art of the Twentieth Century: A Reader, Yale University Press, 2003, pp. 98-106.