Some observations on kitsch and authenticity:
First, an example of what I mean by authenticity. Once, my wife gave a friend a recipe for some cookies she was noted for, and a few weeks later the friend expressed disappointment that his cookies had not tasted the same. He swore that he followed the recipe, but it turned out that he had not had butter on hand, and had figured he could use margarine; had not had granulated sugar, and had used brown sugar; and, in a couple of other instances, had made what he considered trivial substitutions, because he would have had to go out, or the correct thing would have been more expensive. Thus, no surprise, he ended with an inferior product. That is more or less the relationship of kitsch to art, the ersatz passed off as if it were the real thing.
Now, of course, art does not have a recipe, and therefore the line between art and kitsch may be controversial, but it is generally safe to say that kitsch is a copy that has been shoddily made, and does not get the point: the slack pseudo- Impressionist canvas, the abstract painting with perfunctory selection of color, the poem rife with cliches and jangling rhythms.
An artist is sensitive to the way that varying element of composition affect his work, and therefore is meticulous about reworking and selecting. Even an artist like Pollock, who permitted a substantial element of chance to enter his work, would continue fiddling with a canvas until he had satisfied himself, and would abandon a project if it seemed it was not coming together. This is the generic difference between art and kitsch: attention to detail, and devotion to process vs. slackness and easy satisfaction.
Of course, we hold decoration to lower standards, and there is no necessary offense as long as it does not pose as art, but as something disposable, or kept merely as a souvenir. And between kitsch and high art, there are niches, for example, for the Broadway musical or the genre film, that have broad appeal but are craftsmanly, and may be considered popular art. And there is the campy treatment of kitsch that may redeem it by deflating its pretension, and treating it as an curious artifact.
However, kitsch is a danger, because of its carelessness and pretension, its slackness and creepy inauthenticity, presenting itself with a seriousness that is undeserved, appealing to vanity and complacency........... |
