avant-garde

New and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature — the cutting edge of cultural production, often challenging or shocking conventional taste.

• avant-gardist(n)前卫艺术家
• avant-gardism(n)

• avant-garde art
• avant-garde music
• avant-garde movement
• avant-garde theatre
• avant-garde artist
• avant-garde cinema

1. 1.Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (1917) — a urinal signed and submitted as art — was the ultimate avant-garde gesture, questioning the very definition of art itself. (radical art)
2. 2.What begins as avant-garde often becomes mainstream: jazz, abstract expressionism, and stream-of-consciousness writing were all shocking innovations that are now taught in universities. (cultural absorption)

• experimental/ɪkˌspɛrɪˈmɛntəl/— trying new things
• cutting-edge— at the forefront
• radical/ˈrædɪkəl/— departing markedly from the usual
• progressive/prəˈɡrɛsɪv/— forward-looking

French for "advance guard" — the military unit that goes ahead of the main force — "avant" (before) + "garde" (guard) — artists scouting ahead of culture