Death by Kitsch - the Trickle-down Effect in Art

 

Art

The other day, I came across a fine, yet somewhat ubiquitous example, of how our culture “thrives” to a large extent by turning art into kitsch (this the tricke-down effect in art). Someone had Albrecht Dürer’s “Hands of the Apostle” as a kitschy vanity license plate (kind of as if you turned something like this into a license plate). And then, just yesterday, Alec Soth showed another fine example, where the original art work, which had caused a scandal back when it was produced (for more than just one reason btw), was turned into kitsch - with the original model being part of the show.