The shifting postwar situation coincided with a sense of the failure of progress both as a historical condition and as a legitimate concept. Belief in the avant-garde necessarily was attenuated, if not lost, within this analysis. But the redefinition of art is an ongoing issue. The question is whether the term avant-garde itself should be attached to what is now a different set of conditions from that of the previous epoch or if it might be better to let it fall into disuse.

At the beginning of a new century, it is clear that a redefinition of progress and of the nature of the avant-garde is possible. We may find a new way to look forward, to engage the future, to challenge the present. One striking possibility is that the avant-garde may no longer bear a direct lineage to the traditions of European painting and sculpture, even as transformed by the great Modern artists of the early 20th century. A different continuum of cultural precedents and influences is possible, as is a new balance between Europe and America, within Europe, and between the West and Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, Africa, or elsewhere.

A vitally diverse cultural expression is now emerging, even under economic duress, from various regions, countries, and groupings of people. If avant-garde can be equated with radical challenge and formative synthesis and creativity, then the concept remains alive, even if we let the term itself go. Its validity is assured if we acknowledge its achievements by in turn expanding our own terms of evaluation and understanding. In this sense the vanguard functions to push us toward the recognition of the new against the historical claims of the past.