Definitions of Kitsch (kch)

Freedictionary.com

n.

1. Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts: "When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch" (William H. Gass).

2. An example or examples of kitsch.

adj.
Of, being, or characterized by kitsch: "The kitsch kitchen ... has aqua-and-white gingham curtains and rubber duck-yellow walls painted in a fried-egg motif" (Suzanne Cassidy).

Cambridge Dictionary

n.

art, decorative objects or design considered by many people to be ugly, without style, or false but enjoyed by other people, often because they are funny

His home's full of 1950's kitsch.

Merriam-Webster

adj.

1: something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality

2: a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition <teetering on the brink of kitsch — Ron Miller>

Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms

rubbishy or tasteless pseudo‐art of any kind. It is most easily recognizable in the products of the souvenir trade, especially those attempting to capitalize on ‘high’ art (Mona Lisa ashtrays, busts of Beethoven, etc.) or on religion (flesh‐coloured Christs that glow in the dark); and is found in many forms of popular entertainment—the films of Cecil B. De Mille, much ‘Easy Listening’ music. It is harder to identify in written works, but the sentimental doggerel found in greetings cards is one obvious example, while the trashier end of the science‐fiction and sword‐and‐sorcery fiction markets provide many more pretentious cases.

Oxford Dictionary of Modern Design

Seen to imply characteristics that indicate sentimentality, vulgarity, or even pretentiousness, the meanings of ‘kitsch’ were intelligently explored in an essay of 1939 by the American critic Clement Greenberg entitled ‘Kitsch and Avant-Garde’. However, although the word may be found in a number of contexts in the earlier part of the 20th century, its conscious adoption in opposition to the tenets of Modernism and ‘Good Design’ may be found in a number of Postmodern designs and the activities of design groups such as Archizoom, Studio Alchimia, and Memphis. Important in this respect were the writings of the Italian historian, theorist, and critic Gillo Dorfles, particularly his 1969 collection of edited essays entitled Kitsch the World of Bad Taste, which explored many aspects of the iconography of popular culture.

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Fine Arts

 

Works of art and other objects (such as furniture) that are meant to look costly but actually are in poor taste.

Kitsch in literature and music is associated with sentimentalism as well as bad taste.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction:

Art or architecture that is sentimental or banal in tone; considered to have little or no aesthetic value.


McGraw-Hill Slang Dictionary:

n.

any form of entertainment—movies, books, plays—with enormous popular appeal.  This kitsch sells like mad in the big city.

Allee Willis Definition of Kitsch

Questions by Brandon...

Below are a couple random questions that appeared in my facebook inbox from a very intellectually stimulating Las Vegas individual ... the best friend that I never I should have had.


Brandon:

Question for you Gabby. You consider kitsch to be an art form in itself, rather than it being a parody or imitation of art, correct?

 

Gabriela:

 

I consider kitsch to be a category of art. It is a type of art, not a parody or imitation. If it does any type of imitating, then it imitates art practice and genres that have been tried and tested. But the kitsch artist intends for art.

Brandon:

I see. So would you consider the defining feature of kitsch to be mainly a reference to very specific item within a culture. One that if viewed outside of it's own cultural context may not be seen as art.

 

 

Gabriela:

If we're going to say item then we have to be quite abstract with what an item can be. Though it might be a person, object or place, it is more likely to deal with the visual representations of a culture's values, morals, traditions, etc.

I'm not sure that I think that kitsch truly exists within other non-western visual cultures (something I should probably look into). The appropriation of kitsch has sprung up in asian contemporary art, but it always seems to me to read as the art acquiring a very western feel- the effect of globalization? Probably.

Back to your first question in the last message, whether I think that kitsch is an imitation or parody of art. Perhaps I should re-think this. First, I wouldn't grab for the word parody, because this seems to imply that there is somekind of intention to mock art practice. I don't believe that the kitsch artist is intending to do this, because i think this intention would bring the artist into something very different. Duchamp's ready-mades, for example, are intended to mock the notion of art. What were intended to actually count as throwing tomatoes in the face of the artworld, has almost completely lost its meaning as it gets put on a pedastal. Though I love what the man did, I think we tend to read into his work and praise it more than we ought to for what it was intended to do. (if that makes any sense to you)

However, this notion of imitation. Well I think that this is something I really ought to consider more. I was at a conference dinner last week and I was talking briefly about kitsch with my supervisor and in my slightly drunken haze I remember him explaining to someone else at the table that kitsch wasn't art. I stopped him and asked if he really didn't think kitsch was art and if he considered it a pseudo-art. He answered in the affirmative, and then asked me what think. I told him that I did consider it art, but that there is something wrong with it, something that fails. Over the past week, I've run this over my mind a couple times. And maybe I'm not as sure about this answer as I once thought I was. It is indeed that i think that kitsch works are intended to be art, but if we are to come to any resolution on this subject we must first determine what it is to be a work of art. This is where I am actually stuck right now. I am searching for an account of art that not only can account for kitsch in the way I see it as working, but also an account which I can buy into. Not only is an account of art needed, but an account of artistic value. Why don't we see kitsch as having value. One of my favorite websites at the moment is worldwidekitsch.com. Many works on this site are definite imitations of art, while others make me question the idea that all kitsch is imitating art. If all kitsch is imitating art, then I should have to consider that that would be a necessary condition of kitsch. Right?

I think at the moment my biggest issue is that I don't know what art is... or I don't know what I THINK art is. I need an account of art.

i'm suspicious of the first condition...

i'm suspicious of Kulka's first condition...

"kitsch depicts objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions."


For what reason? 

LANDSCAPES AND STILL LIFES. 

Rainy Day in Autumn Anton Bauer

Distaccamento dalla terra  Adriano Fida

Madre Natura Adriano Fida

Still Life with Apples  Robert Dale Williams

On the object of kitsch.


Kulka tells us that the kitsch artwork should depict something that spontaneously triggers an unreflective emotional response. That it should be things that are generally held to be beautiful, pretty, cute or emotionally charged. He also says that the depiction of the everyday things that are devoid of emotional charge will be unlikely to count as clear cut examples of kitsch (pg. 26).


 Well do the above paintings seem to meet this criteria?  The ones by Adriano Fina or William's Still Life with Apples don't seem to meet this criteria. They may be painted in a way that captures some beauty but an onion and a coloured piece of cloth are not objects which tend to trigger emotional responses. Yet, they are clear cut examples of kitsch. 


So then, what if we think of them in terms of themes they depict. I believe the only two we could try to argue this by are Bauer's Rainy Day in Autumn and Fida's Madre Natura. We could perhaps claim that these present the beauty of nature and environmentalism. However, there is something about Rainy Day in Autumn that is rather mundane, particularly on first viewing. The landscape depicted is neither stunningly gorgeous nor particularly dreary. Its somewhere in the middle. A rather average rainy autumn day. But upon looking closer, and stopping to appreciate the colors of the trees, the richness of the colors in comparison to the grey of the sky. The experience of looking at this image is much like one I'd have with this kind of landscape in general. I suppose, what I am trying to get at is that I find the emotive element of  Rainy Day in Autumn to be far more obscure than Kulka is suggesting. 

His response to me on this point would probably be that the degree of "kitschiness" of the subject matter of these pictures is less than stereotypical images such as the one below. 

expect more on this topic to come... 

Some Opening Remarks on Tomas Kulka

I have some very mixed feelings about Tomas Kulka. Some days I love him, some days he really annoys me, and other days he bores the life out of me. I call Kitsch and Art "my bible", but its less like a bible and somewhere between "the ring" (a Lord of the Rings reference), a crying baby, and a crossword puzzle.  He's probably within the top three people I'd have a conversation with, because I have so many questions to ask him about this work.

Though part of my goal  in my work is to broaden the definition of kitsch further than the one that Kulka provides, I have a great appreciation for the reason that he limits the category of kitsch. I primarily think he did this to make the whole ordeal of defining kitsch easier on himself. Ok. OK, that might sound a bit critical, but its not intended to be. I mean in the vernacular kitsch is thrown around and used to cover so many different things. So I don't find huge faults in this other than the fact that if we are talking about kitsch in the visual arts then we must recognize the wide range of non-representational kitsch that surrounds us.

Another thing that is a bit problematic with Kulka is that he claims that his three necessary and sufficient conditions are classificatory and that we can thereby identify kitsch without making an evaluation.

Kulka's conditions:

1. kitsch depicts objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions.
2. the objects or themes depicted by kitsch are instantly and effortlessly identifiable.
3. kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes.

Well it seems that the third condition actually is directly linked to some evaluation of the work in question. His definition does not seem to precede the identification and evaluation kitsch. So his definition could be a bit circular? -- I am borrowing this critique from Denis Dutton.

Finally, I definitely think that Kulka's work underestimates the social role of kitsch. For me, if we are to find value in kitsch it is likely to be in the social realm... possibly in the aesthetic realm, but certainly not in the artistic.

What is kitsch?

What is kitsch? This question will no doubt be repeated hundreds of times in this blog, because I'm constantly rewriting it in my dissertation journal. So come follow my thoughts on kitsch...

My first journal entry I began by discussing the idea of inherent value.

The term kitsch always implies an inherently negative value judgement. Kitsch is a matter of value whether artistic or cultural/social. The negative value of kitsch has been accounted for in a few different ways. Some hold that it is a matter of personal preference or of elitism. Others hold that it is based on structural features and properties of the work of art. No matter what, kitsch is always bad.

But kitsch and bad art are not always synonymous. Art can be bad without being kitsch. Art can be bad without being kitsch. Below are a couple examples of that found on the Museum of Bad Art website.

More

In the Cat's Mouth

So what makes kitsch so bad?
Why do I think kitsch is bad?
What makes Thomas Kinkade's work kitsch?


This leads into a long list of preliminary questions to ask myself about the nature of kitsch which I hope to oneday feel like I can answer.

From this I have established in my head that though kitsch is inherently negative it does not mean that bad art and kitsch are the same thing. Kitsch very often tends to have the look of refined high quality and is often created by someone with great artistic skills... therefore we should believe that there is something other than skill and technique that separates kitsch from legitimate art.