And Now for Some Kitsch: There Used to Be More Tinsel
It would certainly wrong the blameless fawn, yet at times we must ask, what came first: Bambi or kitsch? (Photo: styler*/flickr.com)
6 April 2013
It glitters and is frequently pink. It’s conquered Christmas and young girls’ hearts. It is cheap, gaudy and leans towards bling. What is it? Kitsch. But what is really behind the word? By Carina Braun
Type the word into Google and you will be accosted by heaps of innocuousness. Hello kitties, cherubs, snow domes and pink ponies – all grouped under kitsch. The word appeared in the German language in the late nineteenth century to describe paintings that were quickly thrown together and has had an international career ever since. The human proclivity to glitter and exuberance entered into a mortal union with the achievements of industrialization to produce colourful mass goods, often of low quality. Kitsch, according to the German Duden, is “a product of representational art, music or literature perceived as distasteful from a certain appreciation of art.” In other words: is it art or trash?
No other language has been able to grasp it in its own words. “Kitsch” entered English and French, a short, spittable word that can convey plenty of contempt in only a few letters. Nonetheless even today it lacks – both here and there – a clear definition.
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Ever since its advent, it has divided fans and critics. Kitsch is art’s superficial, dumber little brother and the opposite of modesty. It is hated and loved, scorned and treasured. Artists and art critics accuse it of escapism, see it as the demise of all culture and therefore as a serious threat. Kitsch feeds idleness by propagating an escape from reality; it sees through ever rose-coloured glasses and trivializes dotage in the garden gnome. Austrian writer Hermann Broch judged it most harshly by claiming that one who produces kitsch is “a criminal who desires radical evil.” The most evil of all kitsch-lovers was Adolf Hitler.
“Happy accidents”
Today, we see things with a bit more equanimity. Kitsch has become a cult and established itself as part of our culture. Easy listening, gold plated toilet seats and tinsel – enjoyed in moderation it has become socially acceptable. Often empty of content, often trivial – but sometimes a brief escape from reality does a world of good. Kitsch lets us drop into soft pink cushions. It is no coincidence that one of the most optimistic quotes in history came from a well-known representative of honest kitsch. Painter Bob Ross spent hours unambitiously dabbing happy animals and landscapes onto canvas and revealed a remarkable nonchalance when things didn’t work out. “We don’t make mistakes,” he liked to say, “just happy accidents.”Kitsch pursues us. We love it or hate it. It is by all means a phenomenon. So it’s not surprising that the Sino-German Cultural Network, recently merged with the website of the Goethe-Institut China, is now also dealing with the subject matter in detail and illuminating it from the perspectives of two cultures in words, photos and video. They scrutinize chequer teddy bears and examine bourgeois tartlets with the goal of finding the kitschiest of kitsch. How do the Chinese translate kitsch? What is kitsch here and what is it there? What is the history of pinkness? And what is the Chinese equivalent of the garden gnome? These are questions that make the world go ‘round from Berlin to Beijing.
