Writing, Notes & Quotes from 2014
Writing, Notes & Quotes from 2014
September 2014
Kitsch is a profound and tragic art
A333:Kitsch:ekphrasis:
The stock emotions of the day become the fetishes and regrets of the past. Kitsch is heterogeneous precisely because it uses stock emotions. Kitsch does not need to think too hard. The templates of the production of kitsch are flawed and transient. But contrary to what the critics say about kitsch - in the reception of kitsch the object is personalised, loved, hated and discarded. Its just that kitsch is received into the many microcosms of the living room rather than the monolithic macrocosm of the institution.
The reverse is the case in high art. High art is homogeneous precisely because it constructs stock reasons. The templates of critical reception mint the coin of high art production. High art attempts to diminish or hide the fact it has a lifetime. Or high art's life is a one of the great lives. A life that becomes so attenuated by provenance and reference it becomes virtually non-existent. High art is fixed and fixated on the work of reasons (homogeneous). But kitsch is a torrent of stock emotions and kitsch objects unreasonably flow into many domestic tributaries (heterogeneous) and out into landfill.
Art is work, kitsch is home. Art is opaque, kitsch is transparent. High art apparently does not age or at least is served by an active team of critical plastic surgeons. Kitsch does age, it's make-up washes off and it is better for it. When art's make-up is removed it's value drops - it becomes damaged goods. Kitsch is transformed by life and neglect. Whilst high art is maintained as high art only whilst that maintenance lasts. But in the end the normative fashions of high art are forgotten and join the litter and landfill of kitsch objects. Time and archaeology levels the kitsch/art distinction. The ultimate criterion becomes what endures and plastic will have it's place in the sun.
'Kitsch' - Tomas Kulka (1988).
A333:Kitsch:
Beautiful or highly emotionally charged
(1) Kitsch depicts a subject which is generally considered beautiful or highly emotionally charged;
How can banal stock emotions be 'highly emotionally charged' ? Art can also be 'highly emotionally charged' and 'beautiful'. What is 'generally considered beautiful or highly emotionally charged' is here assumed to be homogeneous and general - but the homogeneity is in the assumption not the subject. A mass produced object may be homogeneous when it leaves the assembly line but be heterogeneously received by the consumer. For example consider the interiors of two identical cars after being used by their owners.
Instantly and effortlessly identifiable
(2) The subject depicted by kitsch is instantly and effortlessly identifiable;
Art can also be 'instantly and effortlessly identifiable'. Kitsch may only be 'instantly and effortlessly identifiable' in the present where it is 'seen as' kitsch. But in time it may be forgotten how and why the object was seen as kitsch. Precisely because kitsch is instantly and effortlessly identifiable is it possible for a kitsch object to be received as a transparent object that may be customised and differentiated in a domestic environment. In contrast art requires a critical apparatus to 'enrich our associations' and is received as an opaque object that may not be customised but rather is preserved in an institution.
Does not substantially enrich our associations
(3) Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations related to the depicted subject.
Only when kitsch is generalised as kitsch does it 'not substantially enrich our associations'. A mass produced object is just another object when it leaves the assembly line - but the same object may be transformed into something unique by possession. Associations in this context are prescribed as aesthetic properties that are recognised as such by the macrocosm of a critical institution. Whether a kitsch object substantially enriches the associations of a particular individual within the microcosms of living rooms is an unanswered question. The point is that associations are not just recieved from an object or its context but attributed to an object and its context.
Overall
Overall Kulka's paper makes a lot of assumptions about the possible relationship of people to the objects they possess or come into contact with. In my view the primary difference between an art object and a kitsch object is that it is possible for a kitsch object to be transformed by personal possession and contact. In contrast art objects are not readily possessed by everyone and a relation with an art object must be presented in an art context before it enriches our associations.
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