This collection explores the complex and often paradoxical entanglement of the avant-gardes, modernism, and war throughout the twentieth century and into the present. From its inception, the avant-garde has drawn on the language and logic of conflict—rebellion, rupture, demolition—seeking to break with the past and to create anew amid its ruins. Yet beyond metaphor, avant-garde and modernist practices have been profoundly shaped by the violence of actual wars: world wars, revolutions, occupations, and liberation struggles. This volume brings together essays that interrogate the dual role of conflict as both a destructive force and a catalyst for aesthetic innovation. It challenges simplistic oppositions between art and violence, asking how avant-garde and modernist artists have responded to war—not only in resistance or critique, but also in complicity, reinvention, and survival. By examining creative examples from across diverse geographies and conflicts, the collection reframes our understanding of the avant-garde’s historical conditions and ideological investments, and the enduring tensions between destruction and creation.
