In a polyvalent and multipolar society, the avant-garde has difficulties identifying opponents. It cannot differentiate and define itself accordingly.
This point has already been made by Richard Chase, who, in The Fate of the Avant-Garde, announced its death as early as 1957. The same conclusion was drawn in 1962 by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Die Aporien der Avantgarde) as well as Renato Poggioli (Teoria dell’arte d’avanguardia), who pointed out the impossibility of an avant-garde in the light of flexibility in the art system. Bürger then spoke of post-avant-garde (Theorie der Avantgarde, 1974), and Achille Bonito Oliva coined the term trans-avant-garde (La transavanguardia italiana, 1980). The overall belief was that because the undermining of what art means has long become mainstream in the art business, such undermining can hardly be considered avant-garde anymore. (Simanowski, Digital Art and Meaning, 221)
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SIMANOWSKI, Roberto, 2011. Digital Art and Meaning: reading kinetic poetry, text machines, mapping art, and interactive installations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Electronic mediations, 35. ISBN 978-0-8166-6737-6