Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity:
Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1987. 395p.
KISTCH
Kitsch and Modernity (225)
1917 - unfinished play "Kitsch" - Wededkind = "Kitsch is the contemporary
form of the Gothic , Rcoco, Baroque"
essence of modernity identified as kitsch
kitsch seen as broad historical style
both ironical and literal
Growth of pseudoart between wars and after World War II confirmed
Harold Rosenberg, late 50s - "Kitsch has captured all the arts
Kitsch = typical product of modernity
link between kitsch and economic development
kitsch sign of modernization in "Second" and "Third" World
Toqueville in Democracy in America
effects of modern democracy on the arts
democracy leads to lowering of standards
number os consumers increase but fastidious consumers decrease
everyone hopes to appear what he is not - hypocracy of luxury
more numerous artistic productions, merit of each reduced
artists cultivate pretty and elegant - appearance more important than
reality
main cause pf wide-spread corruption of taste is status-seeking and
display
Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) (227)
all culture is aggressive showing-off shown in conspicuous consumption
and conspicuous leisure
consumption for the sake of ostentation
Kitsch provides spurious dreaminess and easy catharsis
Adorno (228)
historical necessity of kitsch
intrinsic modernity
artificial imagery
compulsion to escape sameness of things by promesse du bonheur
pleasurable escape from drabness of quotidian life
Kitsch includes imitation, forgery, counterfeit, aesthetics of deception
and self-deception
Kitsch = specifically aesthetic form of lying
beauty is socially distributed like any other commodity subject to
the essential market law of supply and demand
Kitsch and Modernity
Kitsch, Camp, and
High Art
Etymology, Contexts
of Usage, and the "Law of Aesthetic Inadequacy"
Kitsch and Romanticism
Bad Taste, Ideology,
and Hedonism
Some Stylistic Considerations
Kitsch and Cultural
Industrialization
The "Kitsch-Man"
Links and Abbreviations (links are abbreviated by using the initials)