Kitsch

Kitsch exists. Some of us deny it, others would like to wish it away, and still others disregard it. It is the bane of art, which is why artists fight it. There is only one problem: what is it? Everyone agrees: it is bad art, sentimental schmaltz characterized by bad taste and imitation, art colored by emotion rather than reason or realism. On the other hand, Picasso once said: “Nothing destroys creativity like good taste.” Was Picasso kitsch? Hermann Broch, the Viennese writer, saw in kitsch a confusion of ethical and esthetic categories: “Kitsch wants to produce not the ‘good’ but the ‘beautiful,’” he says. The sentence rings of Goethe. Could it be kitsch, too? Indeed, so much has been written on the subject. Can one write about it without succumbing to it?

Kitsch is merely unloved art—or, more correctly: art that never found its place in the great orphanage of criticism. This is the reason that many of us find it so attractive in a lonely, big-eyed sort of way. We return from the museum—having been bumped and pushed, distracted by tour groups ‘ooing’ and ‘ahing’ over the genius of a squiggle, intimidated by women in berets and men in turtleneck sweaters—and find ourselves stopped in front of the window of a second hand shop. There’s Mickey Mouse waving up at us, and in this sublime moment the history of art dissipates. We can think of nothing else than having that little plastic piece of love.

Is it not true that art doted on by critics can become spoiled? What was once a darling baby has, thanks to cocky parents and hordes of admirers, become a capricious brat. Honorable reader, the next time you’re looking at a painting of a black dot (or something that looks like the painter accidentally spilled his can of paint onto the canvas), look into your soul and ask yourself what emotions are born of the experience: inspiration or envy? Have you not asked yourself the question: How did this guy end up in here and not me? If so, then he is not portraying all of his qualities on the canvas.

Modern Art is typified by a fear of kitsch, which can be explained by Modern Art’s inability to love. In its quest to elevate art, to maintain purity and uniqueness in art, to push art forward into maturity, it has forgotten to love it. Like the son of the coach, art has become exemplary and neurotic. For the hard, cold truth of the matter is thus: the invention of kitsch is no better than the invention of a master race. Its polemical ‘us-and-them’ approach is inextricably linked with arrogance and elitism, which step dangerously close to conceit and racism. Kitsch is the creed of angry old men frustrated that the masses haven’t invested as much time as they learning about art.