Isn’t it funny that the one thing that we can find in common between all artists is something like aesthetics….a term with such broad ramifications that even though our thoughts fall under the same heading we couldn’t be father from one another when we evaluate just what that means?
Found this on the web and found it interesting:
“This is Greenberg's breakthrough essay from 1939, written for the Partisan Review when he was twenty-nine years of age and at the time more involved with literature than with painting. He came, later, to reject much of the essay -- notably the definition of kitsch which he later believed to be ill thought out (as, indeed, it is.) Later he came to identify the threat to high art as coming from middlebrow taste, which in any event aligns much more closely with the academic than kitsch ever did or could. The essay has an air and assurance of '30s Marxism, with peculiar assumptions such as that only under socialism could the taste of the masses be raised. But for all that, the essay stakes out new territory. Although the avant-garde was an accepted fact in the '30s. Greenberg was the first to define its social and historical context and cultural import. The essay also carried within it the seeds of his notion of modernism. Despite its faults and sometimes heady prose, it stands as one of the important theoretical documents of 20th century culture. “
n TF
http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html
I have to disagree with the underlined statement. I believe that the taste would be brought down, not up. Have you ever stood in a chair and tried to pull a person up into the chair with you? It is much easier for that person to pull you down out of the chair. Besides, the person on the ground has to want to be pulled up into the chair which requires effort and energy which is not always the case when dealing with society as a whole.
What pompous elite decided that just because it wasn’t what they deemed worthy, the taste of the proletariat’s is any less than theirs? My how some ride such a high horse. Really, just because someone is more educated it doesn’t make them more valid or more important. Who gave them the right to look down their noses at someone’s taste on culture. Yes, the proletariat’s taste may not have been on the same intellectual level but that doesn’t make it any less valid or any less important. If that is the case then that is like saying the proletariat as people are less important as well.
So…in Africa there is a market in which many pieces of African “art” are made and produced for the sole purpose of selling to a Western market. These pieces are cleverly treated in ways to make them appear very old to get a better price. In Africa in many places there is no word for “art” because they create things for utilitarian uses, and Western cultures label them artwork. So then, do these pieces produced for the purpose of selling , become kitsch?
If there is no high or low of something by which to grade and register then how is value determined? If we were a eutopian society where everything was equal and valid and treasured (if thats your idea of eutopia) would the situation be any better? Unfortunately we are tethered to the natural world and hierarchy is common to all species; even bacteria eat one another and the one left alive is the 'winner'.Sure you can argue that it is so much semiotic nomenclature or that in an ever expanding universe there is no center and therefore no 'up' or 'down' but in the end something's got to be on top. The thing about culture is how in our modern day these high and low elements are blurred and so meaningless. The same factory that makes t-shirts for hanes makes them for j. crew. So whats the difference? Consider Koons- bad taste deliberately elevated to high culture. Is it still kitsch? Im sorry but the world of everyones art is equal and everyones taste valid is a fantasy. Question: if everyone is truly equal in their ability to determine and assign value why are you in an art school?
ReplyDeleteOh, don't get me wrong, I do believe that there are different levels of taste and we will always be a society that exists in a hierarchy of many sorts. I am merely saying that I don't think we should dismiss someone's taste simply because they aren't as educated in certain areas. They are entitled to like whatever they choose, I just don't think myself to be any "better" because my tastes are influenced by knowledge that they do not posses. The circumstances in which we choose art are different according to the person but the importance of the person dose not change therefore their taste is just as valuable to them as mine is to me.
ReplyDeleteTo be a bit more succinct let me say it this way; we will never level the playing field in society. No matter how you try, nature will always take it's course and some will have wealth, education, etc. Because of this, the "proletariat" portion of society will never, as a whole, be elevated to a "high art" level of taste (besides the fact that there are people prevalent in the art world (a portion of the high art in-crowd) that like kitsch), so keeping this in mind we should simply accept it as a different taste in aesthetics and move on.
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