Customer Reviews

Kitsch and Art

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tomas Kulka has provided a comprehensive review of Kitsch with his 3 conditions: 1 - Kitsch as highly charged with stock emtions; 2 - that which is immediately identifiable; 3 - of no enrichment and associations to depicted themes and objects. They are not exhastive by themselves of course, but do help us in 'understanding' Kitsch better as its definition has often been too vague and broad notwithstanding its often negative aspects. Kitsch in fact is such an overwhelming 'product' of capitalism and consumerism which plays a central role on our life now. Especially in postmodern time today where demarcation of high art and low art has become insignificant, as such Kitsch as negative and bad taste art has become redundant. Or, there are more negative and worse art around now than Kitsch!

Kitsch as of not much artistic and aesthetic values is illustrated analytically by Kulka. However, the analysis could be more effective with more comparisons of 'fine high art' as with 'Kitsch art'. More examples of Kitsch art could be quoted.

I find the applications of Kitsch to other forms of arts such as music and architecture redundant. More could be talked about on aspect of Kitsch with Pop Art instead. Their relation would be more immediate and directly relevant especially in postmodern time now.

Kitsch is definitely becoming more relevant to us as we are becming more capitalistic and globalised with mass pop culture. Its phenomenon is rampantly identical across continents! A globalised Kitsch is set to 'conquer' us, may it be in postmodern time now or thereafter.

This is my kitsch bible and I refer to it constantly. Kulka writes in a clear, intelligent style and never bogs down the reader with theory or pomp. He dives right into issues, directing addressing our concerns and curiosity about kitsch. If only there were inexpensive copies of this floating around, I would buy one for every friend ...

This is one of the best, most coherent explanations of art and non-art that exists. I'll include more content-related details later, but man alive! Kulka is excellent.