Welcome to the
​Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium (PASC)

Thanks to all who attended our sixth annual PASC symposium on Dec. 4, and many thanks to our learned and talented panelists. The topic was “Ad Absurdum: The Politics and Poetics of Absurdity in Avant-Garde Art and Thought,” featuring 
Cheryl Harper, rod jones ii, Theodore A. Harris, John Heon, Laurel V. McLaughlin, Orchid Tierney, Loraine Wible, Lindsey Whittle, Steve Kemple, Tina Brock and Peggy Mecham for The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, and Barbara Yoshida and Ralph Lewis for Peculiar Works Project. 
We expect to make the video recording of the webinar available soon.

Click image to buy a copy of "Invisible City: Philadelphia and the Vernacular Avant-garde" via the UArts online store. "Invisible City" is an interdisciplinary exploration of Philadelphia's mid-century cultural impact, thoroughly illuminated in nine essays by Rachel Churner, Jennie Hirsh, Sid Sachs, John Szwed, and Anne Wilke Tucker, augmented with interviews and writings by Willoughby Sharp, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Robert Venturi, and Progressive Architecture. Hardcover; 304 pages; 210 images; $40.

You're invited! 
​Every Saturday at 5 p.m., Tina Brock, Producing Artistic Director of The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, hosts "Into the Absurd," artists, writers, and theater-makers. Click image for IRC's Facebook page; Zoom link changes each week, or you can drop in via Facebook Live. Grab your seat and join the conversation at the virtual IRC table. Enjoy past events on IRC's Youtube channel, here.

#pascarts
#phillyavantgarde

What we do 

We believe PASC is a timely initiative that will be a resource for inquiry and collaboration among like-minded scholars, curators, artists, and collectors, generating new research, exhibitions, and performances relating to local and global avant-gardes, as well as Philadelphia’s unique role in the genre.

Who we are

CO-DIRECTORS
John Heon
David McKnight
Michael Taylor

STEERING COMMITTEE
Tina Brock
Christiana Dobrzynski
Cheryl Harper
Sid Sachs
Emily Brewton Schilling

ADVISORY BOARD
Charles Bernstein
Robert Cargni Mitchell
Matt Neff
Katie Price
Jean-Michel Rabaté
​Mari Shaw

A resource for scholars, curators, artists and collectors 

The Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium (PASC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is a network of educational and cultural institutions and associated scholars, artists, curators, and collectors who combine expertise and resources to foster the advanced study of avant-garde movements and promote related special collections, exhibitions, and performances in the greater Philadelphia area and Delaware Valley region.

"Locating the Avant-Garde," PASC's inaugural annual symposium, October 2015

Support for projects and collaborations

Artists of all types who have strong local connections and whose works or archives are in collections in the region are important elements of PASC’s focus. These include, among others, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Morton Schamberg, Charles Sheeler, Thomas Chimes, James Brewton, David Lynch, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Ezra Pound, and Harry Mathews. Likewise, certain fields such as literature, the visual arts, theater, film, music, and architecture are central, as are movements or groups such as Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Fluxus, Oulipo, and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets.

Rare 'Pataphysics books from the James Brewton Archive ...

... at the University of Pennsylvania's Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Original lithograph by Alfred Jarry for the 'Ouverture d'Ubu roi pour piano à quatre mains,' par Claude Terrasse (1898). Presented in 2013 to the Kislak Center, Penn Libraries, by John Heon.

An interdisciplinary focus

Given the deeply interdisciplinary nature of so many avant-garde movements, other fields not usually considered are pertinent, such as the medical humanities, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and the history and sociology of science, to name a few. Similarly, although PASC’s main focus is on avant-gardes in Europe and North America, it is not limited to them; the increasingly global nature of avant-garde art and culture requires a global perspective.

"RE: ACT" with PASC and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, March 2017

"Re: Actions," PASC's second annual symposium, December 2016

Cover of the program for "Pataphysics Then and Now" conference in Philadelphia, March 2014

Join us

​If you're interested in participating in PASC or would like to recommend individuals or institutions to be included, please contact us or email pascinitiative [at] gmail.com.