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KITSCH
There are many disadvantages to translating the term inthis way.
The two attributes that are substituted for the se -mantic richness
of Kitschgreatly reduce its complexity. By de-valuing it from the
outset, they take as a given what needs tobe elucidated. So when
Broch writes, The essence of kitschis the confusion of the ethical
category with the aestheticcategory. It is not concerned with good,
but with attractive
work; it is the pleasing eect that is most important,
thetranslation of Kitschas tape--lil[garish art] is wholly
inad-equate, rst of all because not everything that is garish hasto
do with aesthetics, and then because the second sentencewould
therefore merely state a banal tautology, namely thatthe only aim
of garish art is to produce a pleasing eect.It is an entirely
dierent matter if we retain the term Kitsch.What is more, other
linguistic traditions had not hesitated touse the notion in its
original language.
Clement Greenberg, for example, published an article in1939
entitled Avant-garde and Kitsch in which he returnedto Brochs idea
that Kitsch borrows tried and tested tech-niques, uses
prefabricated signs which, in its hands, solid-ify into clichs
(11). The merit of Greenbergs article is thathe connects the
appearance of Kitschto that of another con-
troversial phenomenon, the avant-garde, which also perma-nently
destabilized established aesthetic values. Greenbergcontrasts
Kitschwith the avant-garde. The avant-garde aloneseems capable of
continuing to change culture in the midstof ideological confusions
and violence (17):
In the rst place it is not a question of a choice betweenmerely
the old and merely the new, as London seems tothinkbut of a choice
between the bad, up-to-date oldand the genuinely new. The
alternative to Picasso is notMichelangelo, but kitsch. . . . If the
avant-garde imitatesthe processes of art, kitsch imitates its
eects.
(Ibid., 1315)
SeeBox .
II. Taste, Effect, or Attitude?
After the war Hannah Arendt reected upon the mass cul-ture that
was developing and of which Kitschremained oneof the main
components. She pointed to the structural linksbetween the world of
aesthetic taste and that of politicalopinions, which both require a
certain persuasiveness. Inmore general terms culture and politics
belong togetherbecause it is not knowledge or truth which is at
stake,but rather judgment and decision, the judicious exchangeof
opinion about the sphere of public life and the commonworld, and
the decision what manner of action is to be takenin it, as well as
how it is to look henceforth, and what kindof things are to appear
in it (Between Past and Future, 223).Understood from this
perspective, Kitsch becomes all themore disturbing since, as
Hermann Broch had noted, onecannot work in any art without adding
to the mixture adrop of eect (Cration littraire, 361), that is,
without add-ing some drop of Kitsch. It was no doubt for this very
reasonthat Kitsch, an alarming corruption that could be found
evenin the most uncompromising works of art, was contested
sovigorously.
KITSCHGERMAN
ENGLISH junk art, garish art, kitsch
AESTHETICS, ART, BAROQUE, CLASSIC, CULTURE, GOT, NEUZEIT,
PEOPLE,
SUBLIME
The word Kitschis German in origin and had previously been
trans-
lated into French asart de pacotille(junk art) or art
tape--lil(gar-ish art), but the original term has now become firmly
established inall European languages. Used as an adjective,
kitschor kitschy(dis)qualifies cultural products intended for the
masses and appreciatedby them. As a noun the term designates a
category of taste, cer-tainly linked to an aesthetics, but even
more so to an ethics whosepolitical consequences are obvious. The
subtitles of two worksdevoted to kitsch (Moles; Dorfles) indicate
why some people find itattractive while others judge it severely:
it is both an art of happi-ness and an expression of bad taste.
I. A Question of the Public or of Artistic Value?
The notion of Kitschrst appeared in the nineteenth century.It
became the object of keen attention when mass societyhelped by
increased leisure timehad at its disposal a cul-
ture for the masses that, by its nature, seemed to threatenthe
very existence of authentic culture. Kitschcovers all dif-ferent
means of expression once they abandon rigor in orderto cater to a
wider public. The art of the chromos, pleasantlyeye-catching
photographs, the religious keepsakes collectedby pilgrims, the
souvenirs designed for tourists, but also thepopular literature
sold in railway stations, the comic theaterof the boulevards, or
the music that simply creates an ambi-ance: these are all examples
of Kitsch. As a kind of debasedpopularization, it oers a decadent
model that is all the morealluring for being so easily accessible.
This is, at least, whatits detractors say.
Hermann Broch, one of the rst critics to write seriouslyabout
Kitsch, sees it as a form of radical evil that destroysvalue
systems, since its essence is the confusion of the ethi-
cal category with the aesthetic category (Evil in the
Value-System, 33). In search of the pleasing eect, one that oersthe
most inexpensive seduction, kitsch art does not aim to bethe
product of good work but merely to be an attractive endproduct.
This perverse method means that Kitschuses triedand tested
techniques and that it turns its back on creation inorder to
achieve a risk-free success in its eort to seduce. AsAlbert Kohn
explains in an introductory note to his Frenchtranslation of Brochs
1955 book Dichtung und Erkennen:
The German word Kitschhas no equivalent in French. Itrefers to
all genres of objects in bad taste, of artisticallypretentious
junk, popularizing commonplace formsthrough their mass-production,
but it also applies toliterary, artistic or musical works which aim
for easy
eects (such as melodrama) and pomposity, and culti-vate
sentimentality or mindless conformity. For want ofbeing able to use
the German word, we have translatedit depending on the context as
art de pacotille [junkart] or art tape--lil[garish art]. In actual
fact, thesetwo meanings are often combined.
(Broch, Cration littraire, 17)
Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may
be
distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or
mechanical
means without prior written permission of the publisher.
8/12/2019 Estetica Kitsch
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KITSCH
longer tell with such works whether Kitschis simply amus-
ingthere is a kitsch-man perhaps ready to be awakened inevery
lover of artor whether it is both funny and
criticallyinsightful.
Denys Riout
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
Arendt, Hannah. The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its
Political Significance. InEight
Exercises in Political Thought, . Introduction by Jerome Kohn.
New York:
Penguin, .
. Between Past and Future.New York: Penguin Books, .
Broch, Hermann. Dichten und Erkennen: Essays . Edited and with
introduction by
Hannah Arendt. In Gesammelte Werke. Vol. . Zrich: Rhein, .
French transla-
tion by Albert Kohn: Cration littraire et connaissance, essais.
Paris: Gallimard /
La Pliade, .
. Evil in the Value-System of Art. In Geist and Zeitgeist: The
Spirit in an Un-
spiritual Age: Six Essays. Edited, translated, and with an
introduction by John
Hargraves. New York: Counterpoint, .
. Kitsch () and Notes on the Problem of Kitsch (). In Kitsch:
The
World of Bad Taste, edited by Gillo Dorfles. New York: Universe
Books, .
Dorfles, Gillo, with Vivienne Menkes, eds. Kitsch: The World of
Bad Taste . New York:
Universe Books, .
Giesz, Ludwig. Kitsch-Man as Tourist. InKitsch, edited by Gillo
Dorfles with Vivienne
Menkes, . New York: Universe Books, .
. Phnomenologie des Kitsches. nd rev. and expanded ed. Munich:
Fink,
.
Greenberg, Clement. Avant-garde and Kitsch. In Art and Culture,
. Boston:
Beacon Press, . First published in .
Gurstein, Rochelle. Avant-Garde and Kitsch Revisited.Raritan,
no. (): .
Moles, Abraham A. Le kitsch: Lart du bonheur.Paris: Mame, .
Over the years the denition of Kitsch expanded and be-
came more complex. When Broch returned to the subjectin 1951, he
stated that he was not talking truly about art,but about a
determinate attitude of life (ibid., 311) deeplyrooted within
kitsch-man. Abraham Moles pursued thislogic in his work on
Kitsch:
It is not a semantically explicit denotative phenomenon,it is an
intuitive and subtle connotative phenomenon; itis one of the types
of relationships that human beingshave with things, a way of being
rather than an object,or even a style. Of course, we often talk of
kitsch style,but as one of the objectiable supports of the kitsch
at-titude, and we can see this style becoming more formal-ized into
an artistic period.
(Moles, Le Kitsch, 7)
Nevertheless, at a time when pop art was blurring theordering of
established values in the avant-garde world, anew form appeared
that staked a claim to Kitsch, and thiswas camp. This American term
is used to describe some -thing so outrageous or in such bad taste
as to be consid-ered amusing (Websters New Ideal Dictionary, 2nd
ed., 1989).Since then, artists in Europe as well as in the United
Stateshave been exploiting both the rst leveltheir works arecrude,
and the second levelthey are doing this deliber-ately, joyously
combining what is pleasing to the eye andwhat is revolting (for
example, Je Koons). We can no
Avant-garde and Kitsch
In his article Avant-garde and Kitsch ()Clement Greenberg
writes:
Where there is an avant-garde, generally
we also find a rearguard. True enoughsimultaneously with the
entrance ofthe avant-garde, a second new culturalphenomenon
appeared in the industrialWest: that thing to which the Germansgive
the wonderful name of Kitsch:popular, commercial art and
literaturewith their chromotypes, magazinecovers, illustrations,
ads, slick and pulpfiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap
dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc.For some reason this
gigantic appari-tion has always been taken for granted.It is time
we looked into its whys and
wherefores.The precondition for Kitsch, a condi-
tion without which Kitschwould beimpossible, is the availability
close athand of a fully matured cultural tradi-tion, whose
discoveries, acquisitions,and perfected self-consciousness
Kitschcan take advantage of for its own ends.It borrows from that
tradition devices,tricks, stratagems, rules of thumb, and
themes, converts them into a system,and discards the rest. It
draws its lifeblood, so to speak, from the reservoirof accumulated
experience. This is
what is really meant when it is said thatthe popular art and
literature of todaywere once the daring, esoteric art andliterature
of yesterday. Of course, nosuch thing is true. What is meant is
thatwhen enough time has elapsed the newis looted for new twists,
which are thenwatered down and served up as kitsch.
(Greenberg,Avant-garde and Kitsch)
Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may
be
distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or
mechanical
means without prior written permission of the publisher.
