Wednesday 10 January 2018

Disagreement and fear of kitsch

As we all know nothing can divide friends more radically than taste, far from some Humean, gentlemanly accord, as it could then be assumed, it comes even between loved ones. I recall seeing American Beauty, when it came out, with a group of people very dear to me. They seemed so happy with it as we left that I said that I would not go and eat and be seen to be eating with a group of people who found such terrible kitsch even vaguely acceptable. Of course in the end it we all agreed that it was but that there are different ways of passing a good enough evening, of which eating together would still be the better part. 

Art is just is bad from that point of view, or rather what claims to be art, and I think here of the last few years of William Kentridge and his to me insupportably pompous and trivial immersive videos, mega kitsch destruction of Winterreise, not as bad as Boltanski, his absurd writing over of Lulu, post-Maoist sentimental criticalities,  not to mention his imperial vandalising of the once patinated riverside in Rome, the lot, quoi? Everything in Kentridge leads back to him, to his hand, to his genius, to his accomplishment, at the end of every trail he lays it is he who is the signified, and so, far from making art, he destroys signification as such. I have been seeking for an explanation of why so many writers I admire and even friends have fallen for his tricks.

In the bath a couple of mornings ago I came up with this. Probably at some point in their childhood they had been forbidden to enjoy Disney's Fantasia by severely tasteful parents, and, seeking an officially non kitsch version of the same, have found it, legitimated by Goodman Galleries, in WK. This led me to realise why I dislike his stuff so much, Disney the first time was, as they say, tragedy, but the second time is *****. Kentridge's illustrations of Schubert are infinitely more horrible than Stokowoski's conducting of classical pops.