 |
 |
Wow. That's some piece of work! One of its ironies is that as a simultaneous commentary and meta-commentary, the work's aesthetic content remains beyond the natural lifecycle of its subject's career. I doubt that the original purchaser bought it simply on account of being Jackson fan, though who knows? The ghastly smiles shared between monkey and Michael, rendered in a medium with decided enlightenment/evolutionary associations (Josiah Wedgwood being grandfather of Charles Darwin) invite the pointed question, did we evolve for THIS? (Answers on the usual postcard.) P > -----Original Message----- > From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On > Behalf Of Mark Weiss > Sent: 28 October 2007 00:05 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: sentimentality & 'classism' Re: New at Sharp Sand > > Somebody somewhere is living with a lifesize painted ceramic of > Michael Jackson and his dog, for which privilege said someone paid > over $5.5 million a few years ago at auction. Check it out: > http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/English/d_steward/koons.jpg > Jackson's sun having set that's a lot of low-cost porcelain now. One > has to have been incredibly stupid. > > I'll confess to a deep affection for select garden gnomes. Among the > more harmless creatures. Not that I live with any. > > Otherwise I pretty much agree, except that you've left out a > category, kitsch that's deliberately produced as kitsch, without > irony, to appeal to its primary audience, people who collect kitsch > without irony (for whom kitsch is not kitsch?). > > Mark > > At 02:16 PM 10/27/2007, you wrote: > >(Apologies if you receive this more than once: the original went AWOL some > >hours back. CW) > > > ><snip> > >I don't think it's any truer that kitsch is the commodification of > >high culture. [MW] > ><snip> > > > >Perhaps _dominant_ would have been better, with less sense of consecration: > >kitsch as the impression of democracy without the underlying reality, > >sneered at from the sidelines. I wouldn't underrate its dangers BTW. > > > >During what were (perhaps) its 19th C origins somewhere in Germany you > >bought (having made a little money) the trappings of advancement off the > >peg; but what you actually got were very bad paintings, almost a sort of > >Giffen good, because you couldn't afford the good ones or couldn't tell the > >difference. And then, of course, all those miniatures of the Eiffel Tower, > >those fake furs, faux wood, all those cocktail cabinets... > > > >The sneer that's often used for kitsch was also used for fish knives > >incidentally; Cf Betjeman. Here the point was, presumably, that fish knives > >were owned only by someone who had also 'bought his own furniture'. > > > >But I have left out garden gnomes. Though that's maybe not their loss. Or > >indeed yours necessarily. > > > ><snip> > >Jeff Koons achieves kitsch, for instance, equally by appropriating already > >kitsch children's toys and greek sculpture. [MW] > ><snip> > > > >Just as *irony* and *sentimentality* come to blows over feigned emotion, > >over who is swindling whom exactly, so *kitsch* and *camp* are a sort of > >argument over subjectivity. On the one hand, the _creation_ of kitsch is > >objectifying, commodifying and all those boo! hiss! things. Whereas, on the > >other, the _recognition_ of kitsch is (at least potentially) a form of camp, > >a sort of emperor's clothes moment which returns the subject back to the > >thick of things, where it belongs. > > > >Koons (whom I also abhor) is certainly making use of *camp*, as indeed you > >go on to suggest. However, the stuff used by the great commodity broker > >isn't employed to promote some sort of helpful break but to _anaesthetise_ > >instead. Thus the gap between *kitsch* and *camp* becomes so narrow that > >they almost coalesce. (The analogy might be with Warhol's *Marilyns*, where > >the gap between the set comprising these works and some notional set of > >monetary tokens likewise reduces to zero.) > > > >CW > >_______________________________________________ > > > >'The possibility now arises that art will no longer find time to > > adapt somehow to technological processes.' > >(Walter Benjamin)