A little bit of Kitsch

Last year, someone called an image I made "Kitsch"

In fact he said "This is Kitsch, I though you knew, I'm sorry". 

Here is the image in question >

Naturally, I wanted to understand what he meant and found quick explanation about low quality art and experienced and educated artists were describing it in all kinds of ways that invkoed emotions in them and me.

This was a bit odd as thios was the first time I ever understood that artits apparantly have enemies and it is different to the bickering about art styles and 'modern art' vs ''how it was in the past'. 

This was WAR in Art and I wrote a whole response about it in the face book page. Mind tha the commentator, albeit odd, was art educated with decades of experience.

Then I read my comment and I felt that I'm somewhat unprepared so I decided to study a bit more.

Oh boy.

I ended up learning about Odd Nerdrum and his followers that prooudly state that they paint Kitsch. I Joined their website and tried uploading some of my works. The site is broker and the community is dead.
On their channel I found this nice video.

I read Greenbergs article on Kitsch in 2 languages, I read the book by the gentelmen above. I read another 2 books on the topic.

Now, after spending so much on it, my response in Facebook is "Thanks!"

Here is the latest Kitsch that I created, enlarge to see the before and after

This little Kite there? That's kitsch. I'm proud of it!

So, from what I read, what is kitsch? Simple!

Kitsch is anything that was done to please the general public's taste. There is a big class struggle in the world and the elites want to distance themselves from the normal people. To do this, they will support and uplift anything that the general public doesn't like, unless they cannot afford it. Then, suddenly things go to normal but that's a thought for another day.
The established artits are happily oblige this need. So are critics, galleritsts, curators and academics. The MFA's whole point of learing is to avoind Kitsch. It is programmed into them because after spending years and resoures on gettting the MFA, it's better be profitable and the normal poeple can't afford their paintings now.

If the painting will be liked by your grandmother, it is kitsch. If you would like to hang it in your living room, it is kitsch.

Now, you can say "I hang abstract painting too, aren't they Kitsch?" and my answer is - yes they are. Look at the poiring kits in at stores, the absrtact painting has been mainstreamed but the Kitsch folks have pushed themselves into the corner with their previous definitions so while it is Kitsch, they cannot say it. Instead they are asking "Where was this art diplayed before?".
Which clearly meands - did this art going throught he right of passage routes or is it just meaningless scribbles?

Where does this put me? Simple  - I have the luxury of paintnig what I want. There are more people like me and when I show my art to the public I get genuine compliments. When I show the abstract art I get robotic "How beautiful..." from people that were taught to show respect to such things "Or else...". 

I have been picking on the abstract here but it is just an example. All examples of modern art apply to this. I can safely say that one of the most prominent features on non-kitsch is laziness. Any time you see art that screams "low effort" know that you are in the presense of greatness and dare not speak about it.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk :)