Kitsch Quotes

• The main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalinists, is not that they are too critical, but that they are too "innocent," that it is too difficult to inject effective propaganda, that kitsch is more pliable to this end.

  Clement Greenberg

  Art, Views, Avant Garde

  Clement Greenberg (1971). “Art and Culture: Critical Essays”, p.19, Beacon Press

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• Kitsch is art that follows established rules in a time when all rules in art are put into question by each artist.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Artist

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• Kitsch is more dangerous than it looks when taken to the extreme.

  John Cusack

  Taken, Looks, Dangerous

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• Kitsch makes things that are pretty as representations, but ugly as art, modern artists made things that are ugly as representations but beautiful as art.

  Mike Curran

  Beautiful, Art, Ugly

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• Art teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things.

  Walter Benjamin

  Art, Teach, Folks

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings, Brigid Doherty (2008). “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media”, p.209, Harvard University Press

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• Kitschis one of the major categories of the modern object. Knick-knacks, rustic odds-and-ends, souvenirs, lampshades, and African masks: the kitsch-object is collectively this whole plethora of "trashy," sham or faked objects, this whole museum of junk which proliferates everywhere.... Kitsch is the equivalent to the "cliché" in discourse.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Museums, Odds, Junk

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• The essence of kitsch is the confusion of ethical and esthetic categories; kitsch wants to produce not the "good" but the "beautiful."

  Hermann Broch

  Beautiful, Essence, Confusion

  Hermann Broch (2002). “Geist and Zeitgeist: Six Essays by Hermann Broch”, Counterpoint LLC

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• Kitsch tends to wallow in beauty - its shortcoming is not aesthetic, but ethical

  Hermann Broch

  Ethical, Aesthetic, Shortcomings

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• My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, meaningless kitsch and meaningless paradigms.

  Karim Rashid

  Real, People, Desire

  "Q&A: Designer Karim Rashid". Express Interview, www.washingtonpost.com. May 3, 2007.

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• Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.

  Milan Kundera

  Forgotten, Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Oblivion

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• Kitsch is Mechanical and operates by formulas.

  Clement Greenberg

  Formulas

  Clement Greenberg (1971). “Art and Culture: Critical Essays”, p.10, Beacon Press

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• One function of art is to de-kitschify kitsch.

  John Bayley

  Art, Function, Art Is

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• The 1950s to me is darkness, hidden history, perversion behind most doors waiting to creep out. The 1950s to most people is kitsch and Mickey Mouse watches and all this intolerable stuff.

  James Ellroy

  Doors, People, Waiting

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• In truth, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” isn't about Sept. 11. It's about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies - or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers - and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling. And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage.

  Manohla Dargis

  Baby, Loneliness, Sadness

  "A Youngster With a Key, a Word and a Quest" by Manohla Dargis, www.nytimes.com. December 22, 2011.

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• The Super Bowl is Americana at its most kitsch and fun.

  Sting

  Fun, Super Bowl, Americana

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• Ultimately Warhol's private moral reference was to the supreme kitsch of the Catholic church.

  Allen Ginsberg

  Catholic, Church, Moral

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• How can we prevent this telescoping of cultures and styles from ending up in kitsch eclecticism, a cool hellenism excluding all critical judgment?

  Nicolas Bourriaud

  Style, Culture, Judgment

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• I just don't want to play the same guy again over and over.

  Ray Romano

  Play, Guy, Want

  "Interview: Ray Romano and Famke Janssen". Interview with Todd Glichrist, www.ign.com. October 20, 2004.

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• 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!

  Milan Kundera

  Running, Children, Nice

  "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Book by Milan Kundera, 1984.

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• A good old rodeo never hurt anyone.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Hurt, Rodeo

  "Taylor Made for Texas". Interview with Logan Hill, www.gq.com. March 7, 2012.

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• And those Texas sunsets... I work a lot in Africa: Texas and Africa have the best sunsets on the planet, that I've ever seen.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Sunset, Texas, Planets

  "Taylor Made for Texas". Interview with Logan Hill, www.gq.com. March 7, 2012.

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• Kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.

  Milan Kundera

  Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Existence, Humans

  "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera, translated by Michael Henry Heim, (Part Six: The Grand March), 1984.

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• When applied to politics and taken to its extreme, kitsch is the mask of death. Fascism was all aesthetics. There was no core principle to it. There was no truth to it.

  John Cusack

  Taken, Principles, Mask

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• No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.

  Milan Kundera

  Matter, Human Condition, Scorn

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• I admire an actor that can do a lot with doing nothing really, for the most part. I like doing a lot by doing so little.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Actors, Littles, Doing Nothing

  "Taylor Made for Texas". Interview with Logan Hill, www.gq.com. March 7, 2012.

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