KITSCH ! Bristol's Queer Fantasia

Before the other night, my relationship with ‘kitsch’ as a concept was practically non-existent- I believed the word ‘kitsch’ to be just that, a word. In my mind, it held the same cultural relevance as words like ‘fetch’ or ‘cheugy’, adopted only in the last few years and thrown around merely to express a nuanced approval or disapproval of someone’s style. Little did I know, ‘kitsch’ was yet to reveal itself to me as the platform for so much more. After their debut event in December, Kitsch! events, founded by @lottiemellor, returned to the Loco Klub in full force on the 24th of February for a queer celebration of ‘villainous glamour.’ Inviting the excess, cliché, and extravagant, this night of Kitsch challenged mainstream cultural tropes of the ugly and evil, redefining these queer-coded stereotypes into cyphers of beauty and liberation.

Walking into the venue was like entering a scene from a distorted children’s fantasy book, with the décor, lighting, and camp performances working together to mimic that of Disney’s original fantasia. After making my way through a sea of glamorous makeup and gaudy accessories, I joined the crowd to indulge in the drag and cabaret. Honestly, I’m not well-versed in the Bristol drag scene- my only drag experience being last year’s Pride and the few times I’ve ever stepped foot into OMG (the UK’s objectively straightest gay club in the history of gay clubs). To quote my friend Gabby, my eyes, quite literally, ‘lit up like a kid in a candy store.’ What excited me most was the beautiful and collective demand for absolute fuckery. Whether it was @Boohooman’s Beyonce mashup performed whilst dressed head to toe like a purple vampire, or @Smallwillynelson’s seductive cowboy debauchery to Taylor swift, the crowd was screaming along in awe. Tapping into the extreme aesthetics within kitsch, @WhosVelvetWilde utilises the horror genre within their performance to carve out a space for themselves within the world of theatre. Using their platform to explore intersections between ethnicity, queerness, and religious belief, they aimed to demonstrate that ‘there is no right way to be queer’.

Throughout the night, the camp performances were split up by an explosive fiesta of activities and crowd interaction, from runway competitions to little snippets into queer ballroom culture.

From the ruins of white supremacist ideologies woven into the queer timeline, Bristol’s ballroom community embodied everything bold and vivacious in their catwalk. In the true spirit of kitsch, they created an atmosphere of anticipation and excitement, fuelling a genuine exchange of passion between strangers.

The aesthetics of maximalism were ever present throughout the event, especially in the @Gender_Criminal’s performance, where a vibrant Beauty and the Beast musical number rolled on into a colourful and outward celebration of trans bodies. This celebration of queerness and diversity extended into the general crowd, where gender binaries no longer existed and personal expression through fashion and makeup had no limits. @Cute. Cartel, a queer collective with the aim to prevent abuse and support those affected by trauma, adopted a simultaneously punk and hyper-feminine aesthetic with their baby pink crochet balaclavas. The dance floor was a realisation of everything I wanted my old dress-up box to eventually become; one moment I was talking to Grease Lightning and the next, the fairy godmother from Shrek. Kitsch!’s zero-tolerance policy clearly facilitated a real desire to connect with others. As Isabelle told me, ‘I’ve made friends without even trying to.

Queer

With these boundaries in place, I experienced a real openness within the community that permitted constructive and particularly eye-opening conversations. Robin and Lou both stressed to me the importance of queer spaces. For them, Kitsch! provided an opportunity to embrace all the elements of campness and femininity that they are taught to suppress, even within the gay community. Within such a warm and welcoming conversation, Robin and Lou helped me better understand my ignorance. They highlighted the importance of my everyday language in its ability to shape my understanding of the world and, ultimately, internally reject the gender binary. It became clear to me that ‘kitsch’ doesn’t merely refer to a particular style of clothing, object, or work of art. It is, as Lou put it, a ‘liberation through one’s pure self’.

Offering an escape from the discontent of the ordinary adult world, Kitsch! encouraged the return of an innate, childlike desire for creation. The theme of nostalgia trickled throughout the space, and into the pop-up exhibition. Containing everything from religious confessionals to barbies and plastic teapots, the show playfully combined the absurd and uncanny. One installation enticed me to sit down at what seemed like a warped re-imagination of an 8-year-old’s afternoon tea. Sat on an armchair draped in crochet that may well have been taken straight from my grandma’s living room, I was immersed in a distorted recreation of my childhood growing up in the early 2000s. @Eyewangeye’s sculpture, which I could only think to describe as a yassified toilet seat, quite literally turned the shitty into the swanky. A true embodiment of kitsch, it captured the essence of primary school arts and crafts.

Reinforcing a clear bridge between the grassroots and the avant-garde, the exhibition displayed Kitsch!’s aim to support and uplift an entire community. This extends way beyond the platform that they provide local creatives. After raising £1000 for the LGBTQ+ youth homeless charity AKT and Bristol Drugs Project at their debut event, this night of villainous glamour put 25% of profits aside in support of S.W.A.R.M (Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement). Not only was this night celebratory of ‘kitsch’ on a personal level, but it is also helping to realise physical change on a larger scale.

Kitsch! released the constraints on my inner child. Immersed in a pool of freedom and creativity, I felt inspired to translate this concept of kitsch into my day-to-day. Why should I hold back when less isn’t necessarily always more? I’m making a promise to myself; to dress with a little more silliness, dance with a little more energy, and argue with a little more force.

BRISTOL FASHION FORWARD SOCIETY’S UTOPIA

Wriiten by Evie Baldwin

Edited by Gabby Ellis

Photographs by Ayesha Nawaz

A 70s lava lamp. An A1 pop art print of Marilyn Monroe. Princess Diana memorabilia. A transparent inflatable lounge chair. Retro geometric wallpaper. Three flying ceramic wall ducks. What do all of these things have in common? If you were to say they’re all tasteless ways to decorate the home, you could be both right and wrong - but the word we’re looking for here is ‘Kitsch’. Kitsch (derogatory) describes a kind of gaudy style of eyesore interiors decorated with a disharmony of common decor pieces; kitsch (complementary) is everything of the former, but takes it on knowingly and with a sense of pride. The kitsch style has been around for a while, and it’s certainly here to stay.

Somewhere in a 19th century art market in Munich, ‘kitsch’ was first used to describe it’s cheap and marketable art. It was familiar, accessible, particularly sentimental, and the kind of thing that new wave modernists loathed. With new art movements of the 20th century on the rise, the escapist fantasy of styles like baroque and art nouveau was out. To create something truly avant garde was to challenge the fanciful and over consumed style of the past, something which set modernism on its path to become the ultimate buzzkill of the twentieth century. Buzzkill-in-chief Clement Greenberg brought up kitsch in his essay ‘the Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ to critique ‘popular, commercial art’ such as ‘comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies’. Greenberg would be horrified if he were to watch the WAP music video, Riverdale or practically any Marvel movie. Despite his very valid plea for more meaningful art his use of ‘kitsch’ (derogatory) fails to consider how much we really need these common comforts.

When preemptive kitsch made its debut in the home, the deliberate use of objectively outdated styles offered a refreshing means of self expression. The subgenre ‘Kitsch lumpen’, began mainly as a way for those living in poverty to have access to interior design in the first place. Those who dreamt of designer armchairs and expensive art prints instead had to improvise with phone booths, graffiti, and road signs, (anyone who’s lived in first year uni accommodation will be happy to know they’ve taken part in a radical style movement.)

Facing hardship, with nothing but hand-me-down furniture, some paint and a touch of kleptomania, people were able to modernise old home items to create a space that was truly their own. It was a radical way to challenge the extravagant decor of upper class home interiors and bring colour and style into the home with very few means. Poking fun at the aesthetics of the ultra wealthy proved to be so fun, that pseudo-luxury kitsch emerged as another subgenre. This was ironically a less accessible aesthetic taken on by designers. Through consistency and perfect disharmony, eccentric decor was able to exist without boundaries- and without judgement (see also: designer kitsch and pseudosperic kitsch).

An antique chandelier in an 18th century country house means money, but a chandelier light fixture bought from Homebase is tacky; an Andy Warhol original is to be marvelled at, but a pop art Marilyn Monroe poster means nothing nowadays. Taste can’t be bought, but it also can if you hire a very good interior designer. We often speak of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture as the hierarchy of art. Kitsch (derogatory) can be a condemnation of your very way of life when it comes to how you express yourself. ‘Taste’ itself becomes synonymous with class, and if you can cultivate value from the small telltale signs of high culture then your home becomes a set piece for the place in society you desire to be. Judging class means judging character, and embracing kitsch works in direct opposition to this by lovingly embracing what snotty insular circles have tried hard to distance themselves from. Kitsch rejects these classist and imposing ideals and, especially within the domestic space, does it on the most personal level. The home symbolically reflects our lifestyle, whilst the rich can litter their homes with the grand and the unusual, the familiar and the misunderstood tells a bold and unapologetic story. A quick look at Architectural Digestproves that many are trying to make their homes as stylistically modern as possible without actually saying much - kitsch has become more avant-garde than avant-garde itself.