confidence in my gut reactions to artwork. art is subjective, i know a little about it, have seen a lot of it, and made a lot of it, so i can trust in my own opinions. i am not a professional critic so have no need or desire to convince anyone else of anything. likewise no one else is likely to convince me of anything, no matter how many words are mobilized into tightly formatted paragraphs, if my gut does not agree. this is a comfortable position. i could close my eyes and fall backward into the arms of my opinions with implicit trust.

all boring and of no interest to you, i know, but what you might find interesting is the secondary effect this has all had on my artistic sight- a distinct and rather large (in these days and times) blind spot where my recognition and appreciation of kitsch should be. kitsch, in terms of fine art, simply does not register in my mind as it is meant to. my subjectivity, gut reactions, and a critical eye miss the point entirely instead picking a piece of kitsch apart into its components of concept and craft, making value judgments on each, summing up, then placing the piece of work into one of my two mental art bins: good or bad (like or dislike if you prefer). kitsch as an artistic category effectively does not exist.

ah, but it does exist doesn’t it? does not just exist as a blade of grass does but sprawls over culture like a vast grassland we are invited to graze from between chuckles. what is it exactly? keane and elvis on velvet? how is it defined?

from dennis dutton’s dictionary of art entry on the subject:

Kitsch (from German- pretentious trash. dialect, kitschen- to smear. verkitschen- to make cheaply, to cheapen).

“Kitsch” has sometimes been used to refer to virtually any form of popular art or entertainment, especially when sentimental. But though much popular art is cheap and crude, it is at least direct and unpretentious. On the other hand, a persistent theme in the history of the usage of “kitsch,” going back to the word’s mid-European origins, is pretentiousness, especially in reference to objects that ape whatever is conventionally viewed as high art. kitsch differs from merely popular forms in its insistence on being taken seriously as art. Kitsch can thus be defined as a kind of pseudo-art which has an essential attribute of borrowing or parasitism, and whose essential function is to flatter, soothe, and reassure its viewer and consumer.

that’s just one mans opinion but some heavy hitters have taken on the meaning of kitsch in their time. Theodor Adorno (“people want to have fun. A fully concentrated and conscious experience of art is possible only to those whose lives do not put such a strain on them that in their spare time they want relief from both boredom and effort simultaneously”.) and Hermann Broch (“kitsch is a highly considerate mirror that allows contemporary man to recognize himself in the counterfeit image it throws back at him and to confess his own lies with a delight which is to a certain extent sincere”) both took cracks at it. as did milan kundera (“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”). clement greenberg sunk his teeth into kitsch long before there was a modernism to champion in an essay (which supposedly was his breakthrough) called avant garde and kitsch.

so if kitsch is so deserving of our consideration (read -in the opinion of the guys above- our malice and distrust) why am i blind to it?

i suppose i have a tendency to be overly earnest. perhaps my sense of humor when it comes to fine art is lacking. but i just don’t see art that way. i don’t look to art as an amusement. my wink and elbow jab receptors are not fired up when i’m in a museum or gallery. art which is meant to be ironic, amusing, clever, or in celebration of its own “badness” does not register as it is meant to but instead, after the quick process outlined above, often gets dumped unceremoniously into the “bad” bin. certain pieces, for instance jeff koons’ michael jackson and bubbles, get begrudging respect simply because they are well executed objects. work like that of artist like john currin gets neatly separated into paintings which are impressively painted, or evocative, and those which are not, (at his recent retrospective at the whitney i passed by the topless bea arthur rather quickly) all intentional kitsch value is lost.

this may seem a minor thing. “you just don’t like kitsch” etc. which, in terms of fine art, i might be inclined to agree with. that is until you take into account an artist like odd nerdrum, the real reason i’m writing this now. i was thinking of posting about nerdrum because i haven’t heard anything about him in a long while. i started googling around to see what was out there and realized that in viewing his work in the past i’d evidently missed the point completely. the word which shows up more than any other in relation to nerdrum is kitsch. this came as no small surprise and made me realize this blind spot of mine existed.

nerdrum’s work, if you are not familiar with it, is created in the manner of “the old masters” (he mixes and grinds his own pigments, stretches his canvas, and uses live models exclusively) with emphasis on chiaroscuro, and are not only exclusively figurative but very often allegorical as well. they are filled with agony, disease, violence; some show necrophilia, hermaphroditism, coprophilia, etc. often there is a sense you’re witnessing some cult ceremony. in short they are beautiful paintings of a kind and of subjects you don’t see too often anymore. at least that’s what my gut has told me.

admittedly there are moments when, in relation the the art of our time, you find yourself drawing comparisons to fantasy novel covers rather than caravaggio when looking at his work. with this kind of subject matter it’s hard not to! but full blown kitsch? his are scenes concerned with “old” subjects painted in an “old” style so… perhaps yes. perhaps it’s all a jab in the ribs and i was too dense to realize it?

nerdrum himself has this to say:

“let us for a minute look at what is lacking contemporary art. What do we miss? I see four things: 1. The open, trustful face, 2. The sensual skin, 3. Golden sunsets, and 4. The longing for eternity. Taken together, these values add up to kitsch—whether we like it or not.

Kitsch must be separated from art. A kitsch painter works toward different goals than the artist. I know that kitsch is a difficult word, but being strictly pragmatic, it is the only thing which can give the sensual form of expression a superstructure of its own, something which can in its turn restore the shine to a beautiful work. Maybe then can the others—the modernists—gain respect for such a work, when it honestly presents itself for what it is, and does not come disguised as art.”

so what do we make of that? sounds more like the embracing of a label placed from without. he’s saying, i think x and y are missing from modern and contemporary art and if the inclusion of those things make me kitsch then i’m kitsch and so be it! it does not sound at all like he is winking at all. unless of course the whole thing, the chiaroscuro, the pigment grinding, the allegory, as well as the earnestness are all part of the joke and my blind spot does not allow me to see it?

i have never viewed nerdrum’s work as kitsch. the craft and skill involved don’t allow for it with my particular internal mechanisms. perhaps i have missed an important aspect of his work and by extension much work being made out there in the great big art world. having such a massive, un-hip, blind spot is a bit embarrassing i guess, but i am an ernest type which can’t be helped, and i suppose i’m quite happy in the end to judge fine art by gut and leave my kitsch to t-shirts and brooklyn hipster hairstyles and old record covers where i can enjoy it. i’ll just go on thinking jeff koons is a hack and odd nerdrum can paint his ass off, blind spot and deeper meanings be damned.

incidentally if you’d like to see more of nerdrum’s work try odd nerdrum.com or here, here, here, and here. mr h. at giornale nuovo also has a post on the subject from back in 03.