The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience Book

If you thought kitsch was as simple as sweatshirts embossed with sparkling kittens or flamingo snow domes, think again. Celeste Olalquiaga has gone well beyond Webster's definition of "pretentious bad taste," and devotes more than 300 pages to the subject. Her thesis? Kitsch is the ability to surpass essential belongings and rest in more superficial ones, to create an imaginary landscape through accumulation and camouflage, and to crystallize the continuous movement of life in the permeable disguise of fantasy. The Ph.D.-wielding Rockefeller and Guggenheim award winner postulates that the Victorian era and the industrial revolution of the late 19th century were the grandparents of kitsch. People stuffed their homes with fantasy-themed tchotchkes to fill the "existential emptiness brought about by rapid industrialization." From "petrified nature" and "melancholia artificialis" to "vegetable jewelry" and "parlor oceans," The Artificial Kingdom covers every historical nuance of tackydom and leaves no postmodern paperweight unturned.Read More