Revolutionary Kitsch

The high speed rails in China have been in news often lately.  The newly opened Beijing-Shanghai line was the birth gift to the ruling Communist Party's 90th anniversary (July 1).  That anniversary was a big event and the Chinese officials at all levels competed to outdo each other to show their ardor.



According to People Daily, on June 30th, a titled "Glorious History" special exhibit, organized by Shandong Provincial Art Museum, sponsored by the Shandong Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department, Shandong Provincial Department of Culture, and Literary Federation, opened to the public.  It boasted "more than 70 pieces of epic paintings, demonstrating the Chinese Communist Party's glorious history and great achievements, demonstrating the dazzling chapter of Shandong Fine Arts. These classic works of art by well-known Shandong artists, were collected from all over the country. These works have repeatedly appeared in the art albums and teaching materials, and their carefully conceptions, in-depth expression, detailed characterization, magnificent momentum , unique language, sincere feelings for the people left vivid and exciting historical chapters and have become moving spiritual power."

After the banal description, the newspaper then named those "well-known" Shandong artists, including Gao Quan, Zhang Hongxiang, Yang Songlin, Qin Dahu, Lu Zhang, Wang Yidong (oil paintings) and Liu Baochun, Shan Yinggui, Cai Yushui (Chinese paintings) and singled out several works for their "moving and educational strength":


"Party Chairman Mao established Party in the company" by Gao Quan


"Score one more victory" by Zhang Hongxiang and Cui Senlin


"Little Eighth Army Soldier" by Sun Zixi

 
"Premier Zhou and the sailors" by Sun Yanzheng

However, the staginess of these works betrayed the influence of Mao's infamous demand on artist -" literature and art are subordinate to politics".  These paintings are false and banal, despite if they were well-executed or not.

I call them revolutionary kitsch.

Kitsch

Recently, a rare "art" exhibit opened in Vienna's MAK Museum -- Flowers for Kim Il Sung; Art and Architecture from the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. The museum says it is the first time major paintings from the Korean Art Gallery in Pyongyang have been shown abroad.

There are more than 100 oils, water colors and traditional Korean ink paintings, dating from the 1960s to the present day. The life depicted there are pure "joy". Apparently, Northern Korean live in a land not dissimilar to the wonderland created by Thomas Kinkade.

These so called are are as naive as sinister. Being charitable, we can call it communism kitsch.


Noon time, by Yang Myong Ryong, 1963


Kim Jong Il, the supreme commander of the KPA, deeply concerned over the soldiers' diet, by Ri Chol, 2000

I happen to be reading Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I actually am reading precisely these few paragraphs now:

The feeling included by kitsch must be a kind the multitudes can share. Kitsch may not, therefore, depend on an unusual situation; it must derive from the basic images people have engraved in their memories: the ungrateful daughter, the neglected father, children running on the grass, the motherland betrayed, first love.

Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass!

The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!

It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.

The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.

And no one knows this better than politicians. Whenever a camera is in the offing, they immediately run to the nearest child, lift it in the air, kiss it on the cheek. Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements.

Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.

When I say "totalitarian," what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree "Be fruitful and multiply."

In this light, we can regard the gulag as a septic tank used by totalitarian kitsch to dispose of its refuse.

People should realized that kitsch is not the monopoly of certified totalitarian countries such as North Korea. Texas can proudly join the rank.

Kitsch in Beijing Capital International Airport

On my way back from China, I had almost four hours to explore the newly built Beijing Capital International Airport. There are art galleries and stage and booths showcasing different regions in China - currently on display are works from Hebei Province next to Beijing.

The art gallery in my terminal displayed "bone porcelain" plates, vases and other products. Most of them are very beautiful but inevitably, some kitsch took the center space - a giant plate of Mao Zedong portrait sat right in the middle of the beautiful utilitarian merchandises.




In one of the showcases from Hebei Province, I picked out an expensively produced catalog of snuff boxes but found nothing nice in it. The catalog started with a grandiose owner of the enterprise and an array of awards and certificate pictures, followed by pictures of visiting VIPs (exclusively politicians) and calligraphy by some of those VIPs. Only then, you would see the products. Most of the snuff boxes were painted with vulgarity, but it was the kitsch stood out. Many snuff boxes featured the president and prime minister of China, striking heroic or caring poses during the 2008 earthquake, or many famous athletes or scientists.



























































In last few decades, China has transformed greatly but definitely not everything.