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Contents Introduction
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4 Introduction to Kitsch 8 Modernism and Kitsch 15 Postmodernism and Kitsch 16 John Gorham’sRed Monarch 18 Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art 21 SOFA Magazine 24 Conclusion 28 List of Illustrations 32 Biblography 33
Introduction
In the dissertation I am going to explore how graphic designers have engaged with Kitsch and the changing meaning of the word in graphic design practice and aesthetics, and if the representation of kitsch creates controversy. In order to do so, I will contextualize graphic design work produced from 1980s to today. The focused aspect of kitsch in the dissertation I intend to discuss is the kind of kitsch that artists and designers manipulate as a statement and/or approach. By manipulate, as Robert Solomon wrote in his essay on kitsch, I mean to intentionally bring about emotions (Solomon, 1991:7). To explain further, there is a whole variety of kitsch. There are those cheap, mass-produced artifacts that are significantly linked to economic and manufacturing values instead of the aesthetic evaluation (Solomon, 1991:3). However, the main aspect of kitsch I would like to concentrate on is when kitsch becomes a design and aesthetic decision. As I have discovered during my research that in the contemporary world, it seems like there is a tendency of exploiting kitsch as a form of expression when it comes to a controversial subject, and this discovery has intrigued and motivated me to find out more about the reasons behind. The beginning of the dissertation briefly introduces kitsch, how it was developed in art and design, and its relation to modernism and modernity in order to give a historical insight. Secondly, I will begin to apply the criteria of kitsch that I gathered merely as an assistance to the examples I have chosen to explain how kitsch creates controversy which leads to seeing kitsch frequently be manipulated or associated with a context that involves subcultures, controversy, and politics, etc,. Last but not least, I will apply the contemporary cultural theory Metamodernism and Inter-passivity with the attempt to explain how today’s living conditions and the ways we communicate now have allowed us to reinterpret kitsch and transform it into something like Gifs and Memes. Criteria of Kitsch
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Although one could say it is impossible to have a clear establishment of what really defines kitsch, I have gathered a list of the characteristics of kitsch primarily from Tomas Kulka’s Kitsch and Art and Robert Solomon’s essays on kitsch as a means of discovering kitsch and its historical context from a contemporary perspective in order to help contextualize the
examples in the dissertation. • Excessive(Solomon, 2004:chapter11). • It is a culture-and context-dependent concept(Kulka, 1996:38). • Has a strong appeal (Kulka, 1996:19). • Sentimental (Solomon, 2004:237). (According to Oxford dictionary, the definition of sentimentality is: Exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia (Lexico, 2019). ) • Its appeal is not generated by the aesthetic merit of the work but by the emotional appeal of the depicted object (Kulka, 1996:32). To illustrate my examples using this criteria throughout the dissertation, I will not specifically point out which of the exact characteristics the given example fits into, instead I will be descriptive of how the example has the personality of kitsch based on these criteria. It is also important to note that Kitsch is NOT an all or nothing category.
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Introduction to Kitsch
FIG. 1. [Kitsch]in’ off the weekend like...(2018)
To help strengthen my argument that kitsch creates controversy, I believe it is important to talk about some history of kitsch so as to have a better understanding of the relevance and connection between kitsch and controversy as kitsch itself is a subjective topic to explore. The criteria of kitsch in this dissertation is formed from the studies on kitsch and art history from the past as one cannot explain what kitsch is without the mentioning of its historical developments. Kitsch, originally was a term used to refer to products that cheap products that were mass-produced due to the industrial revolution (see FIG. 1. ). The generation of mass production that revolution gave rise to was turning middle classes into consumers that brings the topic of taste on to the street (Ward, 1991:9).
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After the industrial revolution, middle classes became materially linked to mechanized means of production (Rugg, 2002). Mass production made the availability of consumer goods much down the social scale than previously. And because of the increased numbers and types of consumers, the question of taste as a single standard was starting to be doubted. “In a modern democracy, the numbers of consumers increase, but opulent and fastidious consumers become more scarce. The general law explains why both the artisan and the artist are induced to produce with great rapidity a [large] quantity of imperfect commodities or art objects�, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his book in 1835
(Calinescu, 1987:266). When products are bought and used they gain symbolic and signifying meanings, they begin to create When products are bought and used they gain symbolic and signifying meanings, they begin to create communications and values. Therefore, products become an indication of one’s social and wealth status. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous book Democracy in America, which was assumedly the first intellectual historical and sociologist analysis of the effects of modern democracy on the arts he wrote about in the 1830s one of the fundamental drives of modernity- “the hypocrisy of luxury” (Calinescu, 1987:266) : In the confusion of all ranks everyone hopes to appears what he is not, and makes great exertions to succeed in the object…..To mimic virtue of every age; but the hypocrisy of luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy…..The productions of artists are more numerous, but the merit of each product is diminished. No longer able to soar to what is great, the artists cultivate what is pretty and elegant; and appearance is more attended in reality (Tocqueville, 1835: 52). It is futile to ignore the economic or political fact when it comes to the design of consumer goods when manufacture takes place with the marketplace in mind (Walker, 1989:61). Wars, revolutions, economic changes, technological innovations, and so on, such factors can affect design (Walker, 1989:58). For example, in the new global economy, it has been proven that the demands for sustainable products, architecture and interior design have increased (Divecha, 2011) “When the economy is good people are definitely more willing to invest in furniture as well as better quality furniture as they have more money for such investments”, Leslie Carothers from The Kaleidoscope Partnership says (Ryan, 2019) . Nineteenth-century paintings have also been used to describe as kitsch by different authors at different times. In On Kitsch and Sentimentality written by Robert Solomon, he describes such work as “high kitsch” (Solomon, 1991:4). Taking a painting of William-Adolphe Bouguereau as an example, a painting that appears to be perfect, classically arranged. Nevertheless, John Canaday wrote “ The wonder of a painting by Bouguereau is that it is so completely, so absolutely, all of piece. Not a single element is out of harmony with the whole; there is not a flow
FIG. 2. Childhood Idyll (1890)
in the totality of the union between conception and execution. The trouble with Bouguereau’s perfection is that the conception and the execution are perfectly false. Yet this is the perfection of a kind, even if it is a perverse kind”, what makes a work of art like Bouguereau kitsch is that the extreme perfection of it is so offensive and cloying, that the sentimentality of it is so one-sided that it becomes ‘false’(Solomon, 1991:5). However, during my research on kitsch, I encountered many works by scholars or art critics who describe kitsch as lies, false, and deception, and seeing kitsch be associated that way so often is not something I personally feel strong about, as the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote in his twenty-two-page long essay “On Bullshit”, he defines “bullshit as the misrepresentation of reality that remains different from lying because, contrary to the liar, the “bullshitter” does not try to deceive”, and he insists on the aesthetic capacities of the proverbial “bullshit artist” because bullshitting is not a craft but art (Frankfurt, 2009:6-7) and that’s how I perceive the badness in some Kitsch.
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Kitsch suggests to be someone without a proper aesthetic education would appreciate, as well as the middle class’s vague ideal of beauty (Calinescu, 1987:230). In 1991, Robert Solomon wrote an article called On Kitsch and Sentimentality in which his perspectives of kitsch lies in the sentimentality of artwork instead of the artistic merits, and the whole discussion is of the relation between sentimentality and kitsch (Solomon, 1991:9). It is the sentimentality of kitsch that manipulates our emotions whether it is false and/or deliberately provoking. Bad art was
once an unacceptable subject matter as it evoked the wrong emotions and reactions; however, now it seems like kitsch has become a statement and/or approach for aspiring young artists to offend and disgust the viewer rather than using more gentle sentiments such as sympathy and delight (Solomon,1991:1). Calinescu wrote, “Kitsch held a profound power to please, to satisfy…the easiest and most widespread popular aesthetic nostalgias” (Calinescu, 1987: 225). Thus, kitsch is more about the experience and enjoyment of superficiality, rather than the superficial qualities of objects. In my dissertation, I will continue to investigate how designers have used kitsch as an approach or as a way of manipulation. In Tomas Kulka’s book Kitsch and Art, he argues that kitsch is a stylistic tendency, it is a classificatory concept dependent on culture and context—the understanding of which requires a psychological, sociological, historical analysis, rather than merely an aesthetic one. To define kitsch would be certainly problematic, but that is not the intention of my dissertation to begin with due to its subjective nature, I will contextualize the given examples to explore how kitsch has developed over time, which possibly has enabled us to reinterpret kitsch in more various ways, and finally to explore the meanings behind the use of kitsch in the contemporary art world: what does it mean when someone produces kitsch?
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Modernism and Kitsch
The purpose of the given historical background of kitsch in this dissertation is to explain how the original kitsch such as FIG. 1 had evidently transformed into something like Red Monarch poster (FIG. 3.) in the contemporary art world overtime. The history of kitsch can not be separated from the history of modernism. The term Kitsch first came into everyday usage around mid-nineteenth century in Munich where some artists designated cheap, minor work for some quick money (Kjellman, 2013: 2-4). Kitsch became a term used to distinguish from proper art due to the competitiveness in the art market in Munich at the time. Modernity and Kitsch, the notions might seem mutually exclusive, at least insofar as modernity implies anti-traditional presentness, experiment, commitment to change, while kitsch for all its diversity, suggesting repetition, banality, and triteness (Calinescu, 1987:226). Then we come to this realization that kitsch is basically one of the most typical products of modernity. According to those who wrote about kitsch from the 1930s to 1950s, especially critics associated with the left, e.g. Clement Greenberg, Theodor Adorno, and Hermann Broch, kitsch not only represents bad tastes, but was associated with reactionary politics and the notion of false consciousness (Kjellman, 2013:10). Kjellman-Chapin describes in her books that “Kitsch was commercial, popular, cheap, gaudy, tasteless, crude, sentimental, shallow, saccharine, inauthentic, insincere, false, dishonest, corrupt and corrupting, parasitic, seductive, pornographic, easy to manipulate, manipulative, and above all, uncritical�, the above characteristics were the symptom of the market based modernity.
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Postmodernism and Kitsch
It is my point of view that kitsch has become much more relevant in postmodernism although the application of the term kitsch to art and design can be traced back to 1920s (Kjellman, 2013:3). In Postmodernism, there is obsession with fragments, a resistance to the absolute and totaling system which seeks to explain everything under a single perception (Woods, 1999:68). That is to say, postmodernism is not only the continuation but the rejection of Modernism, a set of beliefs and concepts that do not have definite conclusions. And because of the deconstruction factors in postmodernism, the ideas of hierarchy are to be challenged, the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture breaks down (Gura, 2017:274), which as a result has given something like kitsch more flexibility and acceptance. Additionally, postmodernism was the first recent style to be both elitist and egalitarian, meaning there is more than one way to look at an object. Apart from that, it also encouraged selfindulgent designs that sometimes descended into revivalism and kitsch (Gura, 2017:274). Professor Kjellman suggests that the concept of kitsch developed in an analogous manner (Kjellman, 2013:11), so to speak, the boundaries it established was the initial modernist definition of art, although the understanding of the norm changed with the rise of postmodernism—allowing figuration, narrative, irony, pastiche, and appropriation to enter the legitimate contemporary art practice. To expand it further, postmodernism has allowed the so called high art to be progressively melded into a diverse multicultural society, and such a phenomenon was especially apparent in graphic design where old rules were broken, and weird became acceptable (Gura, 2017:274). In the days before the Internet and blossom of social media, pop-culture artifacts such as album covers, magazines, posters and so on became commodities of the time and it allowed artists and designers to be expressive of themselves in design.
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John Gorham’s Red Monarch
FIG. 3. Red Monarch (1980s)
I am going to utilize Red Monarch poster (FIG. 3.) designed in 1980s by John Gorham and Howard Brown to give an explanation of why I see this design as kitsch. This poster was designed for Jack Gold film Red Monarch, a black comedy about Stalin. First of all, the designers repurposed a black and white image of Stalin and placed a tomato on his nose to seemingly display a sense of humor, as if someone has thrown a tomato at the tyrant, and it ends up hitting his nose, as Stalin was deemed by Gorham to be both a clown and tyrant (Johnsons, 2009). The tomato on the nose idea brings both opposing elements together, the political and the comic, which essentially creates controversy within this context. Furthermore, although I cannot certainly decide whether this poster is kitsch, based on the criteria of kitsch I introduce in the beginning of the dissertation, it seems relatively obvious to me that this poster design has a couple of the characteristics of kitsch due to the historical context, political factors, and its physical appeal. For example, the use of imagery appears to be parodic which suggests irony, additionally, the title written in red “Red Monarch� and the red splashed tomato on Stalin’s nose bring a contrast effect on a black and white photograph.
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Yet, one might argue that how the designers regarded Stalin could possibly be from a western one-sided point of view, however, it would be well reasonable because of the assumed target audience at that time. Fairly speaking, the tomato on
Stalin’s face was a subjective and self-indulgent design decision because Gorham manipulated the political factor and presented it with mockery, for which it gained its popularity (Johnsons, 2009),and self-indulgence is a shared characteristics of kitsch and postmodernism. It is my understanding that kitsch has always been a derogatory word, and as such it opens up subjective uses of all sorts. Like Solomon said: One culture’s or one generation’s kitsch may be another avant-garde, what is obligatory as “compassion” or “sympathy” in one age may be dismissed as mere sentimentality in another (Solomon, 2004:239). It is not obviously illustrated on the poster if it is sentimental, but based on the reaction the audience had, it had reflected on what people contemplated Stalin. Finally, It might not have been the designers’ decision to make this poster (FIG. 3) kitsch, or they might have done so unconsciously, or perhaps they were commercially in tune with the middle classes in the way that Vladimir Tretchikoff were simultaneously engaging with the lower classes (Ward, 1991:94), for whatever reason it was, the designed successfully resonated with the mass.
Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art
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FIG. 4. Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art (1999)
FIG. 5. Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art (1999)
Another example I am going to illustrate was conceived as part of the Royal Academy’s own millennium project called ‘Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art’ (see FIG.4 and FIG. 5) in 1999, which was a follow-up exhibition to the well-known and controversial ‘Sensations: Young British artists from the Saatchi Collection’, for which Why Not Associates designed the poster and advertising materials. The exhibit was about the powerful and dramatic issues of the time presented by thirteen contemporary artists (Why not associates, 2004:104). As shown in the images above, the designers chose the front Trade Gothic for the word Apocalypse, filled all the counters in black, and placed the text on top of positive images like two swimmers embracing in the water, a family portrait, etc, in order to have the audience questioning the meaning of the piece. The controversial factors of this subject itself created an opportunity suitable for the appearance of kitsch.
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As the evidence shows, there seems to be a tendency of the images being sentimentally one-sided, and even excessive. All the photographs used for this project (see FIG. 5) have one thing in common as far as one can see—the representation of everyday, happy aspects of life such as a smiling woman in a wedding dress, family portraits, a glass of milk, a slice of birthday cake, a nicely roasted turkey, etc, (see FIG. 5). In other words, the curated images give us a false portrait of life, a series of carefully edited portraits that limits our vision and restricts our sense of reality. There is no ambiguity of how our emotions should be when seeing the photographs. Referring back to FIG. 2 the Bouguereau painting, it seems like there is a similarity of how Bouguereau and the design agency Why Not Associates sentimentally manipulated the images, as both of the examples tried to merely show the purity of life. In addition, with the text “Apocalypse” over the images it creates contradiction and controversy. Based on the criteria of kitsch in the first part of the dissertation, it is clear that the aesthetics and the context of this project fit into some of the characteristics of kitsch. Unquestionably, this design work (FIG. 4 and FIG. 5) is definitely sentimental, as in it intends to make the viewer feel nostalgic, being reminded of all the positivity and happy happenings in our life because kitsch is powered by familiarity.
SOFA Magazine
FIG. 6. Issue #3 by Sofa Magazine (2018)
This image (FIG. 6.) is the contemporary example of kitsch designed by Studio Yukiko which released in October 2018. This example is a magazine cover from SOFA, which is a new magazine that uncovers and defines the now and looks into the near future, and each issue discusses a tantalizing, tantamount or taboo topic while sitting on a digital/analog sofa with edgy and controversial individuals, targeting at Generation Z(SOFA, 2016). The controversial factors of SOFA magazine and the kitsch aesthetics make a reasonable combination in my opinion; the magazine (FIG. 6.) is the latest issue of SOFA in which its centered topic circles around masculinity while the cover is presented in an unconventional way. According to Michelle and Johannes from Studio Yukiko, they tried purposefully avoid current design trends (Bourton, 2018), and they speculated how the men’s magazine of the future would look like by looking into the design aimed at a masculine man through internet porn ads, and they concluded that men on horses would be the most archetypal composition for creating an alpha male image.
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However, the real question being— how is the SOFA magazine (FIG. 6.) kitsch and why does it create controversy? To prove the differentia of SOFA magazine cover, I am going to utilize the image (FIG. 7.), which is the front cover of Men’s Health released in October 2018 as well. Both of the magazine covers (FIG. 6. and FIG. 7.) are the representation of masculinity, however with two very different attitudes. Starting from the obvious, SOFA magazine seeks to speak to audience who would
FIG. 7. Men’s Health UK (2018)
be more interested in subcultural topics, a more like-minded crowd so to speak such as the LGBT community, or simply people who are attentive in queer studies, while Men’s Health specifically aims at only, or mostly male audience, adding that the fact Men’s Health magazine being one of the world’s biggest men’s lifestyle magazines proves to be the closer ideology of men and masculinity for the mass compared to the unconventional magazine front cover design from SOFA (Business Wire, 2012). Moreover, the most noticeable text apart from the titles on both covers are “OH BOY!” written supposedly in a hand-writing, illustrative sort of typeface on SOFA magazine (see FIG. 6.), and the bolded “BIGGER ARMS NOW” from Men’s Health magazine (FIG.7.), suggesting contrasting narratives and contexts. In addition, the style of photograph on Men’s Health magazine is very unlike the SOFA’s, as for the SOFA magazine front cover is more of an expression of certain aesthetics with a not so masculine man on a white horse, and probably with a sense of humour included. When compared these two magazines (FIG. 6. and FIG. 7.) together, the SOFA magazine appears to be more gender neutral whereas Men’s Health magazine is to emphasise how masculine men can be. At last, looking back to the criteria of kitsch now, it would be well within reason to suggest the cover design of SOFA magazine fits into most of the characteristics. Milan Kundera launched a reflection on what kitsch is and it was used by many scholars
and art critics who had written on kitsch (Sutterfield, 2013:51). Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tears says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch (Kundera, 1984:251). As Kulka wrote, the purpose of kitsch is not about creating new expectations, but to satisfy the existing ones. Thus, “Kitsch does not work on individual idiosyncrasy. It breeds on universal images, the emotional charge of appeals to everyone” (Kulka, 1996:27), and it seems to me that the SOFA Magazine cover (FIG. 6.) is the second tear of Kundera’s reflection on kitsch because instead of focusing the masculinity on the physical body itself, there is a topless average looking man in blue jeans on a white horse standing in the wild to demonstrate the exaggeration and excessiveness in kitsch aesthetics.
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Conclusion
There are several defects in illustrating kitsch personality and contextualizing the examples in the dissertation I personally feel like, as nowadays the ideas of beauty and the aesthetics concepts are so fragmented; however, this modern fragmentation is what allows us to enjoy things like kitsch more freely in my opinion, like Friedrich Schiller’s proposal to modern fragmentation, he suggests the term “unitarian” could be a solution, emphasizing on beauty as “wholeness”, though Guy Sircrllo responds to this statement saying it is discredit of beauty itself (Sircrllo, 1990:22) which I will not discuss further in this dissertation. At the end, I will shortly explore how Metamodernism and Inter-passivity have possibly engaged in kitsch aesthetics and how these two contemporary concepts have presumedly allowed us to openly transformed the idea of kitsch into something like Gifs and Memes due to today’s living conditions. To summarise my findings, metamodernism oscillates between the irony, parody, and pastiche associated primarily with postmodernism, and the modernist enthusiasm for purity and totality (Rudrum and Stavris, 2015:306). Although kitsch, memes and gifs may not necessarily have direct connections, they have certain shared features as I speculate, such as the brutality, and manipulation of sentimentality because memes and gifs are often presented as series of curated images and text which convey a particular message. Arguably, it might appear to be contradicting because kitsch has been associated with false sensations by many scholars in the past, being seemingly opposite of the authenticity in metamodernism (Rudrum and Stavris, 2015:306). However, to justify what I assume what “authenticity” means in today’s world, the affinity between hip hop and gangster movies have arouse, productions like Scarface, The Godfather, The Irishman and Pulp Fiction have made quite a topic because representations like that are rather more authentic, in the sense that it reflects to the hasher realities as the truth (Fisher, 2009:11).
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Karsten Harries wrote that “the need of kitsch arises when genuine emotion becomes rare, when desire lies dormant and needs artificial stimulation”(Solomon, 1991:7), and possibly at this point I can reasonably argue that Kitsch is becoming more relevant to Interpassivity, which refers to a sense of being active through another subject who does the job for one such as canned laughter on television (Žižek, 1998:483), because of today’s living conditions, or the “Metamodernity”, the excessiveness and the sentimentality of kitsch emulate emotions for us as Gifs and
Memes have become presentations of opinions and emotions in the digital world. Though the relation to metamodernism, interpassivity, and kitsch is not the main topic of my dissertation, it is my attempt to open up new innovative ways of looking at kitsch aesthetics in graphic design based on more contemporary examples and theories. In conclusion, there are still a number of aspects to kitsch that I would like to explore more. As much as I enjoyed discovering and analyzing on kitsch in graphic design, it has been quite challenging because kitsch is a very “western concept”. It may be impossible to decide what extent of bad taste, stupidity, or trash goes towards making up kitsch, but one can not deny the excessiveness in kitsch, and that is why kitsch is often allied to the bizarre, to fantasy, and the abnormal (Sternberg, 1972:3), and that is also why I personally find Kitsch fascinating. Like Sternberg has written: “Recognition of Kitsch comes from the way things are looked at, from the way they affect you rather than through any fixed categorisation or comprehensive classification (Sternberg, 1972:3)”, therefore, instead of seeing kitsch as an aesthetic style, maybe we should see it as a way of thinking, a sense of humour.
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List of Illustrations FIG.1. [Kitsch]in’ off the weekend like…(2018) [Kitsch collection] At: https://www.instagram. com/p/Bo4qJ2mnWqY/ (Accessed on 28.12.20) FIG. 2. Childhood Idyll (1890) [Painting] At: https://denverartmuseum.org/edu/object/ childhood-idyll (Accessed on 12.11.19) FIG. 3. Red Monarch (1980s) [Poster] At: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O101875/redmonarch-poster-gorham-john/ (Accessed on 27.10.19) FIG. 4. Why Not Associates (1999) Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art (1999) [Graphic design] In: Twemlow, A. Why Not Associates ?2 2nd Edition. London: Thames & Hudson FIG. 5. Why Not Associates (1999) Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art [Graphic design] In: Twemlow, A. Why Not Associates ?2 2nd Edition. London: Thames & Hudson FIG. 6. Issue #3 by Sofa Magazine (2018)[Magazine] At: https://www.sofa-universe.com/ (Accessed on 10.11.19) FIG. 7. Men’s Health UK (2018) [Magazine] At: https://www.magzter.com/GB/HearstMagazines-UK/Men%27s-Health-UK/Health/298459 (Accessed on 1.3.20)
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