This paper aims to establish some relations between the European artistic vanguards, such as Surrealism and Dadaism, and John Cage’s musical pieces. More specifically, I will try to present some of the characteristics of these vanguard movements that persisted in the work of the American composer. To do this, I will consider the ideals of Expressionism – height moment of aestheticism –, from the book Theory of Vanguard, by Peter Bürger, and the study of Jorge de Almeida, Crítica dialética em Theodor Adorno, reflecting on its relationship with subsequent vanguard manifestations in order to provide a better understanding of the common characteristics of the vanguard movements in the first half of the Twentieth Century. In this analysis, I will discuss the concepts of vanguard, art institution and work of art. Then, I will map some aspects of the John Cage’s work, relating it to the avant-garde ideas presented earlier. In short, I intend to demonstrate, at the end of these reflections, the avant-garde project for the art in the Twentieth Century and the manifestation of the elements of this project in the John Cage’s poetic.