For a long time, I've been promising my good friend Neroli to take on that ogre of a discussion on the topic of kitsch. This is really a tough beastie for me and I have very mixed feelings about the whole issue. Having studied German art and philosophy this becomes an even bigger conundrum, as the Germans are excellent at analyzing things to death. Of course it is their term, so they have a right to do so, but when you add metaphysical philosphy to art theory you are bound to end up with a mess - especially when you do it in a hopelessly snarly and Barock language.
English linguists categorize the word kitsch as one of the ten untranslatable words of the German language, which doesn't make this undertaking any easier (and of course every blogger with aspirations to the arty or artistic (including me now alas) has written on the subject) and enlightenment is still centuries away. Despite the linguists' warnings, Artlex , the online art dictionary, gives a nice concise definition that goes something like this:
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Art characterized by vapidly sentimental, often pretentious poor taste. It is typically clumsy, repetitive, cheesy, and slickly commercial.
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Of course the Germans would never let us off that easy. German Wikipedia says (generously categorizing the topic as an ATTEMPT at a definition):
. Im Gegensatz zum Kunstwerk, das Spielraum für Interpretation zulässt (Interpretation sogar fordert) ist Kitsch nicht auslegbar.
. Stereotypen und Klischees: Kitsch wiederholt, was dem Betrachter bereits geläufig ist. Vom Kunstwerk wird Originalität erwartet (Innovationszwang der Kunst).
. Leichte Reproduzierbarkeit (Massenware)
...and then goes on to elucidate numerous additional requirements. The ones above speak to the fact that:
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In contrast to the (my words) genuine artwork, kitsch leaves no room for, (in fact, requires the absence of) interpretation.
It presents no innovation or originality (is cliched and stereotypical).
And is easily reproducible.
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This term quite possibly comes from a German verb kitschen - to sweep the dirt of the streets, or to sweep dirt together.
When you combine this idea with the way the term was used in its formative years, (Hermann Broch, a very famous German author categorized Adolf Hitler as the prototype of the Kitsch-Mensch) there is sufficient reason to find it distateful.
Theodor Adorno categorises it (again from German Wikipedia) as "Konfliktlosigkeit, Kleinbürgerlichkeit, Massenkultur, Verlogenheit, Stereotypisierung, Zurückgebliebenheit, Wirklichkeitsflucht, falsche Geborgenheit oder etwa dümmlich Tröstende(s)
conflictlessness, petit bourgeois, mass cultural, dishonest, stereotyping, stodgily backward, flight from reality, false and rather stupidly reassuring.
(And that aint reassuring!) Small wonder that I have a rather negative sense of the whole idea.
Here is where I start to have a problem with the term - how do you categorize poor taste? I know that we can't even agree on what art is (... I don't know what it is, but I sure know what isn't art...)
Naturally I know bad taste when I see it! Well, maybe! You see taste has always been a term used by the "in" group to remind the "out" group that they are just that. I worry that definig something as kitsch is just another way of disinheriting the already disinherited.
Is kitsch art? So that gets me back to one of my all time favorite paradoxes - trying to define Art. (Capital A art.) When push comes to shove, I guess I resolve the issue by narrowly defining what I believe to be art. FOR ME (please note that narrowing there), Art must
1. Communicate some kind of message or meaning (The meaning may simply be that art in the past has been ovely wrought and fraught with meaning and I am protesting against this past idea or that art has ignored the craft of working carefully with its materials.)
2. It must have access to and address society and issues important ot more than one person (thus be seen or heard - if it stays in the bottom drawer - for me it is not art - it is creative expression.)
3. (And here is the one that upsets lots of my colleagues in the Art department) It must have ideals, and have more than a superficial level - it must communicate about something metaphysically important (yes the nature of art itself fits in this category) In short for me art must sepak to truth, justice, beauty or some such form.
For me this solves the problem of kitsch. If the object is superficial with no depth, then it is kitsch. Now we have the question of audience - for me - if there is a group that finds depth in the object (it has a social/societal component) it is art. Of course that doesn't make it good art, but it is Art.
I get tremendous joy in kitsch and alas I have to report it is in a different way than my tender and compassionate friend Neroli finds kitschy joy. I am at heart a nasty and critical individual. While my generous friend Neroli joys in the abundance of feelings and its excessive expression in kitsch, I have to admit to enjoying it as Schadenfreude 9another one of those untranslatable German terms). May the universe forgive me, but I get a certain vindictive glee out of laughing at the grotesquely exaggerated nature of kitsch and looking down my nose at. I just can't quite escape that one-up-man-ship inherent in being an insider looking at the ostracized outsider. In short I am the worst kind of snob. While Neroli laughs with, I alas laugh at. Now I will go to my zabuton and try to meditate on the nature and necessity of compassion and yes after all that I still love kitsch and find it stupidly reassuring.
