The name itself seems to have emerged half jokingly.

“𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 ‘𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑡’ ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑦 𝑔𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑔𝑙”
“𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑡 𝐺𝑎𝑦 𝑁𝐹𝑇”
“𝑊𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑...”

Meme quickly became shorthand. “Avant/Gay” seems to reframe what avant-garde means in a digital native art world. Where “avant-garde” once described the vanguard of modernism, the “gay” twist signals camp, chaos, excess, refusal to conform to any clean lineage..?

Nothing to do with sexual exclusivity... It’s a posture, an attitude, a way of being in art...

👉🏾 Excessive where others are restrained?...
👉🏾 Unserious where others chase seriousness?...
👉🏾 Resistant to tidy categories?...

Avant/Gay NFTs mark a fork from both the polished fine art lane of Ethereum and the finance heavy meme lanes of crypto culture.

The term itself is both joke and manifesto. Ridicule and call to action. Born out of banter, but crystallising a movement that thrives precisely in being hard to pin down.