5 Teaching About Kitsch
5 Teaching About Kitsch
5 Teaching About Kitsch
Doug Blandy
I hiiversity of Oregon
also be associated with gender, for example, a "girly" world like the world
of Betty Paige pin-ups, frilly lingerie from Frederick's of Hollywood, and
spiked high-heeled shoes are associated with fetnininitj' in the extreme.
Kitsch in the girly world can be so elaborate that ultra-feminine drag
queens are looked to for expertise, moving kitsch, in this case, towards a
cross-gender kind of experience (Bright, 1997. p. 132). Through its asso-
ciation with gender and sexual orientation, kitsch has also been linked
with "camp," partictilarly Sontag's (1961) delineation ot "camp" as anifi-
cial, ironic, playful, stylish, exaggerated, and theatrical. For Sontag, many
examples of camp are also kitsch. For Felluga (2004) camp is self-
conscious kitsch. Welch (2003) elaborates on the relationship between
kitsch and camp by arguing that camp amplifies kitsch by
focusing on... irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humor. For
example: A bed is not campy. A bed displayed as art is probably
kitschy. But a paint-splattered bed, previously occupied by two
men, hung on the wall, is definitely campy, (p. 1)
Kitsch is traditionally associated with bad taste. Kirschenblatt-Gimblctt
(1998) suggests looking
no farther than neighborhoods where...
certain property values will plummet with
appearances of clotheslines, satellite dishes,
storage sheds, birdbaths, or recreational
vehicles or the wrong types of lawn grass,
mailboxes, awnings, or siding material,
(p. 265)
Kitsch, a concept originating in the 19th centur)'
among German art dealers to describe bad art, is
commonly associated with fakes, aesthetic rubbish,
Clothesline. and that which is cheap. While (good) art is thought to require effort and
Photo by Bud Lee seriousness, kitsch is linked with pleasure and entertainment. Kuika's
(1996) conceptual analysis of kitsch as an aesthetic category supports
this view by identifying kitsch as being deficient and less valuable in
all ways than art.
Because of its association with bad taste, kitsch is devalued aestheti-
cally, economically, and culturally. Greenberg (1939) affirmed tbe devalu-
ation of kitsch within a modernist perspective in his now famous essay
"Avant-Garde and Kitsch," in which kitsch was linked with the aestheti-
cally undesirable, not suitable for cultivated people and identified as low
culture. Greenberg ultimately made "social snobbery look progressive"
(Gopnik, 1998, p. 73). Kirschenblatt-Gimblett (1998) amplifies
Greenberg's attitude towards kitsch by noting, "kitsch is to caste what
superstition is to religion--somebody else's mistake" (p. 276).
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett perceives that kitsch is not of the wealthy, academ-
ically educated populace. What is implicit in these attitudes towards kitsch
these collectors is because it is so hard explain why they collect what they
do. Malanowski writes:
The fact is that collectors are not so much nutty as inexplicahle;
the man who lives to hunt down rare decks of Canadian railroad
playing cards cannot explain why to someone to whom the cards are
just, you know, cards. Who can explain why Andy Warhol bought
200 cookie jars for $2 apiece, let alone why somebody bought 145
of them for $198,605 at the Warhol estate sale? (p. AR23)
It may be, Malanowski continues, that these collectors, when placed on
the Roadshow, are making a claim about having taste and intelligence.
You may have missed the dot.com boom, but those Eskimo hunting
masks that an ancestor acquired a century ago and that youVe been
storing behind the Christmas decorations ... [may be] worth a lot
more than your shares ofDrkoop.com. (Malanowski, 2000, p. AR19)
Partly because of this new interest in the everyday and "the great find,"
many universities are beginning collections that would have been unheard
of just a short time ago. The University of Cincinnati has mote than 300
snow globes; Ohio Stare University has accrued over 100 pairs of glasses
worn by celebrities; Western Michigan University collects antique hearing
aids; Northeastern University has nearly two dozen physical education
uniforms worn by women in the 1920s to the 1960s; and the University
of California at Davis has 10,000 shopping bags from all over the world
(Yachnin, 200I,p. A8).
Exhibitions that include kitsch are increasing as collections expand. In
2001, for example, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture of the
Museum of New Mexico had an exhibition on "Tourist Icons: Native
American Kitsch, Camp and Fine Art Along Route 66." Included were a
necklace from the Santo Domingo Pueblo made from bits of battery
casings and red phonographic records instead of the usual precious stones;
numerous pairs of salt and pepper shakers; and miniature models of
pueblos and kivas (Brockman, 2001, p. AR26). More tecendy, the Studio
Museum in Harlem put on an exhibition titled "Black Romantic." Over
15,000 calls to artists went out nationwide resulting in a selection of
works described as "a kind of a Norman Rockwell-meets-George Hurrell
pictorial pridefest" (Plagens 2002, p. 62). Critic Peter Piagens writes,
"And there's some good stuff in it" (p. 62).
Besides giving collectors a positive identity and museums something
new to display and discuss, kitsch may be popular today because of its
nostalgic references. Much of it is inexpensive, and sometimes it comes
from recycling old items into something new, like using an old toilet or
bathtub as yard art. It is the ready-made that is manipulated and made
unique, granting it nostalgic aspects to past eras (Turner, 1996, p. 65).
While most all kitsch is questionable by elitist and classist standards,
Mexican kitsch may have been relegated to the lowest rung of kitschness
or not, imagery, that Roth (Roth cited in Leigh, 2003) would identify as
kitsch, is being used by some ro affirm their own relationship to the
events of September 11 while simultaneously resisting terrorism and offi-
cial memorialization. Consider this in relationship to one petson's
description of being tattooed as
the puncturing, cutting and piercing of the skin: the flow of blood
and the infliction of pain; the healing process, a visible and perma-
nent mark on yet underneath che skin: 'an inside which comes from
the outside ... the exteriorization of the interior which is simultane-
ously the interiorization of the exterior. (Gell cited in Benson, 2000,
p. 237)
September 9/11 tattoos can be seen as a person's way of communi-
cating his or her values, attitudes, and beliefs about the event on the only
surface that can truly be called their own. In chis regard, unlike any offi-
cial memorializing that may take place, the memorial is the person. The
tattoo is also the reference point from which a person can see him or
herself within a historical event felt to be of importance (Benson, 2000).
From this perspective, reality is both shaped and expressed by the tattoo.
People are remarkable in the ways that they are able to u.se culture as a
tool to advance a political agenda and resist hegemony. While we
routinely accept that so-called art can be a part of cultural resistance,
definitions and conceptions of kitsch usually fail to mention this possi-
bility. The 9/11 tattoos remind us of the importance that the body can
have as a site of resistance. We can also study the kitschification of
September 11 in relation to the larger history of resistance, The tattooed
body can be thought of as contributing to those public spaces chat
ptomote an issue but also empower: they build self and group
identities They offer versions of experience and reality, becoming
part of the stories people tell each other: to console, galvanize and
resist. (Duncombe, 2002, p. 8)
The kit.schificaiion of 9/11 mostly may have to do with people taking
images and objects manufactured for the general public and using them
to generate a cultural response of their own. It is important that you not
read our speculations about the kicsch of 9/11 as a valorization of this
particular kitschification process; rather, it is simply illustrative. To date,
there is no consensus around the political implications of 9/11. Resistance
in response to 9/11 is about wanting to make a statement about safety
and security among some, and, sadly, resistance to democratic values
associated with a free society among others.
Implications for Art Education
fCitsch has not been explicitly considered to any great extent within
the literature of art education. This is surprising given that the study of
popular and mass culture has been overwhelmingly accepted within the
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