‘Avant-guard’. ‘Contemporaneity’. ‘Popular culture’. ‘Tradition’: What is it? Where is it?
Contemporary art is art of the contemporary era. A contemporary in terms of its environment, to which gravity toward the old is assumed. Contemporaneity itself is a privilege. Without precedents, unique and new.
Popular culture has a tinge of the past. It has a background in tradition. It is the continuation of a thread being pulled off an old spool. It is the refreshed replica of the possessed.
Yet, as long as it remains alive, popular culture is contemporary by definition: it is contemporary in terms of the moment and place where it occurs.
And, in some socio-political contexts, contemporary art has been transformed instantly into popular culture.
So, when is something tradition? Where is something contemporary?
Laboa brought together new forms and experimental fluidity with popular songs as few have.
All the same, the relationship between what is called tradition and avant-guard is not always parity. Even today, it is the imbalance between the hierarchy, power, and prestige that decides the relationship between the two.
How do they come together? From where does contemporaneity approach popular culture?
What is being sought? Why? When?
What distance is needed to become an aim?
Maialen Lujanbio
ROUND TABLE
-David Toop: A Disconnected Voice: voices with and without bodies (ONLINE) EN
-Karine Etxeberri: Uraren kantuak EUS
-Iván de la Nuez: Desde un lugar en la retaguardia ES
-Bernardo Atxaga: Sehaska kanta bat Etiopian EUS
-Maialen Lujanbio (Moderator) EUS
* Translation into Basque, English and Spanish
‘Avant-guard’. ‘Contemporaneity’. ‘Popular culture’. ‘Tradition’: What is it? Where is it?