In “What Is an Avant-Garde?” Mike Sells examines the discourse about avant-garde as a subject matter, describing said question as avant-garde itself. He shows how in the 1950s avant-garde started getting institutionalized, mainly featuring european male artists or writers. The question “What Is an Avant-Garde?” reflects itself within the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, where activists started debunking the institutionalized racism and ideological power of the US educational system. Hence why “What Is an Avant-Garde?” Is be a valid question to consider, but you have to go beyond that and ask more critical questions, that further examine and challenge the term.
Philippe Sers challenges the differentiation of two aspects of the avant-garde in his article The Radical Avant-Garde and the Contemporary Avant-Garde. He especially criticises that the original thought of creating something new and seeking for alternatives to the common understanding of avant-garde has become lost within the contemporary avant-garde. Sers imposes the idea of radical avant-garde being a resistance against totalitarianism. Whilst I do agree that radical avant-garde has to sustain to explore new ways of art and challenge everyday knowledge, contemporary avant-garde also has its rightful place in society, as it is introduces you to a world of thinking differently and lays the foundation of radical avant-garde.