Monday, May 28

Looking Down from the Ivory Tower

Kitsch: a term of German origin that is used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style, bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass by the educated elite. This term can be applied to most of what is seen in the piles of "art" at yard sales on memorial day weekend. However, one yard sale did have their kitsch displayed fairly creatively. Part of me wanted to transport the whole display into a gallery and leave it open for discussions peppered with references to Clement Greenberg's essay "Avant-Garde and Kitch". I imagine the discussion would end with someone quoting Greenberg's frequent statement, "If you don't agree with me, you're wrong."