The New York Times has finally assigned an arts columnist to write about the avant-garde. But is it too late? “Many say that no real avant-garde – which I’ll define as a combative group of free-thinking artists – can exist anymore. The media’s reach is too vast. New artists and movements get snatched up too quickly. If they are popular they get overexposed and stale. If they are not popular they disappear, and the marketeers decide they had better play it safe next time.” Still, the digital world has brought so many different types of art and free thinking together that the fusion of styles could be considered the new cutting edge.