Kitsch and the Aesthetics of Comfort (original) (raw)
Related papers
Through defining kitsch art, looking at Bourdieu’s Distinction theory, applying McCoy and Scarborough’s (2014) viewing styles, and linking it to Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis, the following essay will elaborate on the role of kitsch art in society and how it is an example of bad taste.
Kitsch and the Social Pretense Theory of Bullshit Art
The Polish Journal of Aesthetics, 2021
This essay argues that bullshit art is a meaningful concept that differs from bullshitting about art, although the two may occur in tandem. I defend what I call the social pretense theory of bullshit art. On this view, calling a work of art ‘bullshit’ highlights a discrepancy between the prestige accorded a work of art and its nonsense character. This category of aesthetic criticism plays a unique role that cannot be identified with kitsch but bears only a contingent connection to it.
"Kitsch Against Modernity" [article, 1998]
1998
"The writer discusses the concept of kitsch. Having reviewed a variety of approaches to kitsch, he posits an historical conception of it, connecting it to modernity and defining it as a coping-mechanism for modernity. He thus suggests that kitsch is best understood as a tool in the struggle against the particular stresses of the modern world and that it uses materials at hand, fashioning from them some sort of stability largely through projecting images of nature, stasis, and continuity. He discusses the relation of kitsch to fine art, arguing that fine art also has as its primary function a counter-movement to modernity. He suggests that the main difference between fine art and kitsch is that fine art, as well as its emotional function, also involves a reception context that allows it to assume an intellectual task. Among the writer's conclusions, he finds that positing a stark or absolute contrast between kitsch and fine art is unjustifiable as both have the same roots and objectives." [WilsonWeb].
2018
The discourse on kitsch has changed tone. The concept, which in the early 20th century referred more to pretentious pseudo-art than to cute everyday objects, was attacked between the World Wars by theorists of modernity (e.g. Greenberg on Repin). The late 20th century scholars gazed at it with critical curiosity (Eco, Kulka, Calinescu). What we now have is a profound interest in and acceptance of cute mass-produced objects. It has become marginal to use the concept to criticize pseudo-art. Scholars who write about kitsch are no longer against it (Anderson, Olalquiaga). And since the 2000s, art students have been telling us that they “love kitsch”. The contemporary concept is strongly attached to certain colors (pink) and materials (porcelain). In this article I aspire to find some keys on how to view the history and contemporary state of the concept. My hypothesis is that the change in the use of the concept has at least partly to do with changes in the concept of art, which has lat...
Kitsch and contemporary culture
This paper addresses the question of kitsch by interpreting it as 'bad' art of a particular kind. It draws mainly, but not exclusively, on Karsten Harries's phenomenological exploration of kitsch to provide a framework from which to approach kitsch in contemporary (postmodern) culture. It is shown that, by uncovering attributes of kitsch such as the self-enjoyment of the spectator and lack of reflective distance, Harries provides valuable pointers for assessing what is ultimately the anaesthetizing political function of kitsch in contemporary culture.