Photo credit: Fayra Teeters, featuring Masque Alfresco actors performing Looking Glass Alice in Wonderland

My definition of this remarkably expressive Yiddish word as it applies to culture: Whenever artists twist themselves into a pretzel in order to be “politically correct”, saying very little, avoiding any depth of thought or feeling or vision. The work becomes devoid of relevance, resonance, insight, sustenance, or true cultural value.

Some examples of kitsch:

Elevator music designed to be calming, where the high notes and low notes have been removed, playing on an endless loop.
Dentist office art – also designed to calm neurotic nerves.
Commercial jingles – especially jingles based on Christmas Carols
Christmas sweaters, ugly or otherwise
“Modern-day” holiday music:

I also give a huge shout-out to all parodies, satires, word-plays, and comedic send-ups of standard tropes that have become kitsch. That was the very foundation-mission of my theatre, Masque Alfresco, a modern-day rendering of commedia dell’arte traditions. We were an equal opportunity destroyer, poking holes into political kitsch, celebrity slams, and social nonsense. The original commedia troupes spoke truth to power using comedy, ridicule, and slapstick as their cover. Similar to the all-licensed fool of Shakespearean, medieval, and Renaissance tradition. If you can make-em-laugh, you can get away with almost anything.

Kitsch

by Anna Schroeder

Kitsch to me is an art form. It is outrageous, campy, glitzy tongue in cheek expression.
Jeff Koons is an example. His larger-than-life ceramic sculptures are glossy bright and absurd.
Some vaudeville acts might fit into this definition. Lucy Beaumont, a contemporary comedian, works her crowd singing and giving advice with an act that harkens back to Mae West in the 1940s.
So, for me Kitsch is not a bad thing, or a slur, but a style. Sometimes it takes an overstatement to make that statement be heard.

To Kitsch or Not to Kitsch

by Jim O’Halloran

I have to admit to being absolutely flummoxed when this was floated as a musing subject. Kitsch is not something which comes naturally to me. By the way, do you think flummoxed could be considered onomatopoeic?

While groping for something to say, I started whining to some of my dear friends, and the conversation turned to my dear second aunt. They pointed out that she embodied the intentional expression of kitsch, along with burned toast and Eames chairs.

At that time, my second aunt lived in downtown Chicago and suffered from chronic fatigue and chronic fibromyalgia, necessitating the use of canes, walkers, crutches, and a motorized wheelchair. Did that stop her? Noooooo! Did it slow her down? Most likely. How did she deal with it? Sparkling rhinestones covered an orange ball cap. Canes with flames, neon barber pole wrapping, glitter, and sparkles. Crutches with dyed feather boas, similar on the walker. Yep, at the symphony. This sort of behavior served her well until her passing this year after her 100th birthday. One of the people I aspire to!

So back to the Eames chairs. They were in my father’s dental office. Maaan, I loved those chairs! One day at home my siblings and I totally burned the daylights out of a piece of bread. Failed toast. But that piece of bread had a nice shape. It actually looked quite beautiful with subtle shadings of heavily carbonized black; so carbonized, it didn’t even smell burnt anymore. We kids were all so impressed with that piece of toast that we found a hanger and mounted it above those Eames chairs, leaning heavily on the Dadaist playbook to justify it to my father. He bought it for a few days, or he just decided to humor us.

These are memories that bring me warmth and happiness.