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THING of the month
October 2009:
Obama-Sneakers
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Obama-Sneakers, Keds, USA 2009 |
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Kitsch and cheap mass rubbish
In the current exhibition "Evil Things" the Obama-Sneakers are shown in the categorie "Jingoistic Kitsch". Gustav E. Pazaurek was describing Kitsch as cheap mass rubbish with no attention given to the choice of materials, forms and decoration. The most common sub-categories are:
Jingoistic Kitsch (especially World War horrors)
Topical Kitsch
Travel Souvenir Kitsch
Folklore and Sportsmen’s Kitsch
Devotional Kitsch
Commercial Kitsch
"The absolute antithesis of artistically inspired work of quality is tasteless mass rubbish, or kitsch: it disregards all the demands of ethics, logic and aesthetics; it is indifferent to all crimes and offences against material, technique, and functional or artistic form; it knows only one commandment: the object must be cheap and yet still attempt to create at least some impression of a higher value."
From: Gustav E. Pazaurek, Guter und schlechter Geschmack im Kunstgewerbe, Stuttgart, Berlin 1912
was to be seen in our special exhibition "Evil things. An encyclopedia of bad taste", more
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