Avant-garde attempts to destroy art-as-institution misfire into merely revolutionizing art itself.

Evidence

Paradoxically, the avantgardiste intention to destroy art as an institution is thus realized in the work of art itself. The intention to revolutionize life by returning art to its praxis turns into a revolutionizing of art. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 237

Categorization

• QUESTION: This internal contradiction — the avant-garde’s political goal defeating itself into aesthetic revolution — is a candidate mechanism relevant to how ironic/strategic identity stances collapse into what they oppose.