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

  Hermann Broch

  Ethical, Aesthetic, Shortcomings

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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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• I want to keep working with the best, keep going and be a better actor each time I go and dive into something.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Actors, Want, Keep Going

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

  Allen Ginsberg

  Catholic, Church, Moral

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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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• 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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• When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

  Milan Kundera

  Inspirational, Heart, Mind

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

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

  Sting

  Fun, Super Bowl, Americana

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• Video games and computers have become babysitters for kids.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Kids, Games, Video

  "No Way But Up". Interview with Scott Quill, www.menshealth.com. 2007.

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• I want to be scared. I want to keep taking insane risks. I want to be scared because you're going to grow through that whether you want to or not. I don't want to play the same guy. I want to keep throwing curveballs to you guys and keep telling stories.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Play, Guy, Risk

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• I've always been intimidated by the technicalities of taking photos, especially with a film camera - not just a point and shoot.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Cameras, Film, Intimidated

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I played pretty darn competitive-level hockey. Then the good old knee injury. Obviously, it's a blessing in disguise, but growing up Canadian, that's our religion, that's our football.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Football, Growing Up, Hockey

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

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• I have like 20 snap-up shirts in my closet, and I never, never would have thought before FNL would I have had that.

  Taylor Kitsch

  Shirts, Closets, Snaps

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

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• I don't do the L.A. scene. I stay focused and very myopic. I don't feel I need to prove myself or be in people's faces, especially in this town.

  Taylor Kitsch

  People, Needs, Myopic

  "No Way But Up". Interview with Ari Karpel, www.menshealth.com. March 2, 2012.

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