The heroic age of American avant-garde art

A major contribution of Pierre Bourdieu to the study of art was his analysis of the autonomization of modern art fields. His model of autonomy and legitimacy in modern art was based on a study of the genesis of an avant-garde in French art in the late nineteenth century. I argue that a similar autonomization of art occurred in the midtwentieth century in the United States. I present studies in music and film to demonstrate the genesis of an American avant-garde during this period. This general process of autonomization until now has been neglected in the work of sociologists and historians on American art. My analysis shows that the genesis of principles of autonomy in the United States, unlike France, developed in what were considered the high and popular arts. These case studies reveal a failure in Bourdieu’s model to account for the role of culture industries and popular artists in the autonomization of modern art fields. I show how the American art field generated a subfield of autonomous art that included both avant-garde high art and independent popular art. This permanent subfield of avant-garde and independent art became central to future struggles over autonomy and innovation in American art.