Peculiar Paradise: A Practice Led Investigation into the Allure of Collecting Kitsch Objects

Abstract

This practice-led research in painting explores, and aims to reconcile, my experience of the conflicting values associated with the role of kitsch in the pleasures and cultural values of Australian domestic life, with the cultural and aesthetic values of high art, where kitsch has traditionally been deemed as of low cultural status.

I engage with painting as a medium that can encompass and portray experiences of paradox and multiple perspectives, to investigate, represent, and resolve this collision of worlds. I focus on my family's collection of kitsch ornamental objects as a particular example of this aspect of material culture, to explore more broadly the attraction these objects hold, and the personal and cultural significance of such collections.

This research is contextualised by historical and contemporary perspectives on kitsch. I argue that the traditional critiques of kitsch of Clement Greenberg, Hermann Broch and Gillo Dorfles are limited in their scope and conflict with my own experience. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, I draw from recent sociology, cultural theory, psychology and philosophy to make a case for the aesthetic, psychological and sociological value of the objects in my family collections and identify their positive and redeeming qualities. Key positive re-evaluations of kitsch I draw on include writing by Sam Binkley and Celeste Olalquiaga. Recent cultural theory on collecting as a creative and critical process as promoted by Susan Stewart, Walter Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard and Annette Money also contribute significantly to my research. My affectionate perspective on kitsch is also contextualised and compared with contemporary art practices engaged with kitsch: including the work of Jeff Koons, Pip and Pop, Audrey Flack, Ricky Swallow and Lucy Culliton.

My methodology involves investigating ways to re-present the objects, through combining traditional highly realistic oil painting methods drawn from the Northern European Baroque, with contemporary modes of three-dimensional display. I engage painting's potential to evoke the material, formal and perceptual properties of specific ornamental kitsch objects, to explore their appeal and generate a heightened sensory appreciation of their characteristic qualities. In exploring a range of ways of depicting and displaying these paintings as objects, I consider the theatricality of object display, ranging from the modestly domestic to the spectacular palatial interiors of Rococo Europe. My painting practice becomes a means of resolving this aesthetic conflict by engaging in aspects of collecting and curating, and the quality of attention I bring to the depiction of the objects I portray.