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1 - Nic Mooney: Kitsch
When faced with the question of “What is art?”, it’s easy for the answer to become both grandiose and vague, its meaning leached out by talk of captured emotions and expressions both tender and powerful. Rather than get lost in trying to fit all of art under one cosmic umbrella, I want to focus on the edges of art. Kitsch exists at the edges, as perhaps the lowliest form of art: art that is cheesy, sentimental, tasteless, mass-produced, and often with strange juxtapositions (Jesus and a baby, Jesus and a Native American, Jesus and Elvis). It is a category that encompasses velvet paintings, garden gnomes, Precious Moments figurines, Anne Geddes photography, ugly Christmas sweaters, and the works of Thomas Kinkade. What’s fascinating is 
the way kitsch can be digested in such different ways. While some simply scorn it, others embrace it in an ironic fashion, reveling in the tackiness. I’m admittedly part of the latter – my favorite Christmas ornaments on the family tree must be the Snowman cookie angel and the Santa shaped like a baseball bat. But a third way of seeing kitsch exists – those who truly and without irony like it. After all, as indicated by Komar and Melamid’s “best” paintings, as presented by Professor Gonsher, what some may dismiss as insipid – namely, a painting of George Washington, children, and wildlife all frolicking in a river – is 
genuinely enjoyed by a majority of Americans. Indeed, Thomas Kinkade did not build his fortune on ironic hipsters buying jigsaw puzzles of charming cottages for each other, but on people who actually enjoy such stuff. And kitsch does not exist to simultaneously horrify and amuse somebody like me. This exposes the inherent hierarchies that exist when we try to define what art is. When I make fun of kitsch, I’m 
occupying some higher of position: some might say of intelligence, others might say of snobbery. A reversal of this relationship exists with abstract art. The same people who embrace commemorative plates may see more talent in Thomas Kinkade’s renderings of snowy villages than in Jackson Pollock’s drip technique. Each piece of art provokes different reactions in us all, an idea that I think can perceived most clearly by examining the edges. Both kitsch and abstract art have a remarkable ability to divide and force the viewer to examine what art truly means, whether in dismissing a Mondrian by saying “I could do that” or in laughing at your grandmother’s collection of Precious Moments figurines. This is not to say that I think criticism is 
invalid and that all art exists equally, but rather that I believe kitsch IS art…just one in which its purposes and the reactions it produces shapeshift for each person. Kitsch exposes an essential characteristic of art: the ability to provoke reactions and conflict, not just over its content, but on what art really is -- to put us back at the beginning. It's the same effect abstract art seems to produce.
When faced with the question of “What is art?”, it’s easy for the answer to become both grandiose and vague, its meaning leached out by talk of captured emotions and expressions both tender and powerful. Rather than get lost in trying to fit all of art under one cosmic umbrella, I want to focus on the edges of art. Kitsch exists at the edges, as perhaps the lowliest form of art: art that is cheesy, sentimental, tasteless, mass-produced, and often with strange juxtapositions (Jesus and a baby, Jesus and a Native American, Jesus and Elvis). It is a category that encompasses velvet paintings, garden gnomes, Precious Moments figurines, Anne Geddes photography, ugly Christmas sweaters, and the works of Thomas Kinkade. What’s fascinating is 
the way kitsch can be digested in such different ways. While some simply scorn it, others embrace it in an ironic fashion, reveling in the tackiness. I’m admittedly part of the latter – my favorite Christmas ornaments on the family tree must be the Snowman cookie angel and the Santa shaped like a baseball bat. But a third way of seeing kitsch exists – those who truly and without irony like it. After all, as indicated by Komar and Melamid’s “best” paintings, as presented by Professor Gonsher, what some may dismiss as insipid – namely, a painting of George Washington, children, and wildlife all frolicking in a river – is 
genuinely enjoyed by a majority of Americans. Indeed, Thomas Kinkade did not build his fortune on ironic hipsters buying jigsaw puzzles of charming cottages for each other, but on people who actually enjoy such stuff. And kitsch does not exist to simultaneously horrify and amuse somebody like me. This exposes the inherent hierarchies that exist when we try to define what art is. When I make fun of kitsch, I’m 
occupying some higher of position: some might say of intelligence, others might say of snobbery. A reversal of this relationship exists with abstract art. The same people who embrace commemorative plates may see more talent in Thomas Kinkade’s renderings of snowy villages than in Jackson Pollock’s drip technique. Each piece of art provokes different reactions in us all, an idea that I think can perceived most clearly by examining the edges. Both kitsch and abstract art have a remarkable ability to divide and force the viewer to examine what art truly means, whether in dismissing a Mondrian by saying “I could do that” or in laughing at your grandmother’s collection of Precious Moments figurines. This is not to say that I think criticism is 
invalid and that all art exists equally, but rather that I believe kitsch IS art…just one in which its purposes and the reactions it produces shapeshift for each person. Kitsch exposes an essential characteristic of art: the ability to provoke reactions and conflict, not just over its content, but on what art really is -- to put us back at the beginning. It's the same effect abstract art seems to produce.
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