ΚΙΤΣΑΡΙΑ
Kitsch is one of my
favourite modern Greek words. Rendered as «κιτς» for Athenians who struggle to
pronounce the requisite voiceless postalveolar fricative consonant, the word
can take on a multiplicity of manifestations, such as «κιτσάτο» in its adjectival
form. Such is the flexibility of the modern Greek language, that a particularly
acute case of kitsch can be rendered as «καρακίτς,» with the late lamented
Malvina Karali applying it to females thus: «καρακιτσάρα.»
While it is therefore
true that kitsch evokes cheap or easy emotions,
it is questionable whether this in itself, should be considered a
problem. Our reactions and emotions with
response to art or situations in life do not always have to be refined,
educated or profound. The sort of relaxed
and casual release that kitsch gives can be beneficial as it allows us to
highlight a nostalgic or sentimental aspect to our consciousness of ourselves
that can lead to a tremendous voyage of discovery. Attempting to make all
aspects of our identity serious or critical is not always necessary, despite
the dangers of cultural stagnation and implosion if we do not offer alternative
critiques. Thankfully, in Melbourne, at least at the present, a vast array of
alternative Greek voices exist and compete with each other, while for everyone
else, there is always the blue and white themed Greek tavern for solace. Driving in the suburb in which I
reside, I always smile when I pass an incongruous, among the red brick homes, whitewashed, blue and white house, complete
with Greek flag, stylized painted peacocks and the word «Ελένη» lovingly
painted upon the letterbox, paraphrasing the great Milan Kundera: " Now matter how much we scorn it,
kitsch is a part of the [Greek] tradition."
The concept of
"black kitsch is alien to the English language, wherein the term
"kitsch" exists as German loan-word, signifying a low-brow style of mass-produced art or
design using popular or cultural icons. In this sense, the term is generally
employed to signify unsubstantial or gaudy works or decoration, or works that
are calculated to have popular appeal. The very concept of kitsch is applied to
artwork that was a response to the 19th-century art with aesthetics that convey
exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama.
To the modern Greek, the
term κιτς has slightly different connotations. It appears to be synonymous with
the term «κακογουστιά,» implying a simplistic, caricatured aesthetic
taste. When coupled with conceptions of
a Greek identity, the fusion forms an undercurrent of mutually accepted symbols
and cultural identifiers, whereby one can claim membership of the fold.
Hermann Broch argues
that the essence of kitsch is imitation, in that kitsch mimics its immediate
predecessor with no regard to ethic: it aims to copy the beautiful, not the
good. According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch is, unlike art, a utilitarian object
lacking all critical distance between object and observer, offering
"instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort,
without the requirement of distance, without sublimation." In other words,
it is a form of art used to appeal to our emotions in a way that is intended to
evoke quick approval without any attendant reflection.
Greek kitsch is all
around us. It exists in the music we listen to, the symbols we identify with
and the art we buy. Whereas Grand Tourists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries brought back souvenir replicas of the art they came across as a
memento and for further study, the plethora of statuettes, kombologia and Suns
of Vergina that clutter the shelves of "Greek" stores in Melbourne
exist only to remind us of who we are.
While various members
of the community often argue that there is more to our culture than bouzouki
and tzatziki, and we are lucky that in Melbourne, as compared with say,
Chicago, our cultural awareness and expression is infinitely more complex and
multi-faceted, when it comes time to showcase ourselves to the broader
community, and to ourselves, the same methods are employed time after time:
folk dancing, traditional music, the odd brass-plated Spartan, gyros and
loukoumades, leading one to believe that Greek culture has either not
progressed from the weapon wielding kapetanaioi of the nineteenth century or,
that if it has, such advances as have been made have been rejected. Examining the phenomenon in an excellent
estimation of the most recent Lonsdale Street, festival, Neos Kosmos English
Edition Editor Kostas Karamarkos had this to say: "Yes, in a street festival,
including the Lonsdale Street Festival, you will find elements of folklore,
simplicity and kitsch, but this is to be expected in a paniyiri and in any
case, this doesn't negate the much more important positive outcomes of this
celebratory weekend."
Kostas Karamarkos is
correct in observing that we love our kitsch. That is its purpose. Yet rather
than becoming hysterical about its prevalence, we would do well to consider
that our need to distill our historical and culture into a few symbols that can
be shared with everyone is a very ancient one. In his thoroughly provoking poem
"Poseidoniatae" Cavafy describes how the Greek colonists of
Poseidonia in Italy, having gradually become latinized, resorted to kitsch in
order to preserve some semblance of a Greek identity: "The only thing
surviving from their ancestors/ was a Greek festival, with beautiful rites,/
with lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths./ And it was their habit toward the
festival's end/ to tell each other about their ancient customs/ and once again
to speak Greek names/ that only a few of them still recognized."
The fact that Cavafy
wrote in multi-cultural Alexandria, at a time where the prominent and affluent
Greek community appeared to be at the pinnacle of its material success should
not escape our notice. Yet Cavafy was perceptive enough to identify within the
postulated kitsch ritual display, the elements of fear and guilt that underlay
it: "And so their festival always had a melancholy ending/ because they
remembered that they too were Greeks,/ they too once upon a time were citizens
of Magna Graecia;/ and how low they'd fallen now, what they'd become,/ living
and speaking like barbarians,/ cut off so disastrously from the Greek way of
life." Thus, according to Cavafy, kitsch serves the dialectic of cultural
assimilation and cultural distinction, cultural pride and cultural shame.
The capacity of
unaesthetic art to provoke pride in one's origins should not be discounted.
After all, it was a similar arbitrary distillation of cultural elements by the
creators of Acropolis Now that led to a great cultural emancipation, whereby it
became not only acceptable but also admirable to be a "wog." While
those cultural signifiers may make us cringe today, it can be argued that via a
similar process, such stock elements as blue and white colour schemes,
pastiches of ancient Greek aesthetics and the like can evoke feelings of pride
in many of us, providing motivation for further explorations within the abyss
of Greek cultural experience or, at the very least, keeping us within the
kitsch defined fold of the Greek identity.
In viewing our
relationship to our own kitsch, it is worthwhile considering just how much of
it we control, or how much of it is constituted by an identity of norms of
appearances foisted upon us or assumed by us as a result of other's desires to
see ourselves be portrayed in a certain way. How ancient Greek, or Big Fat
Greek Wedding we truly are, may be pale in priority to our need to find
receptors in others in which they can appreciate or understand at least a
portion of our identity, however mythologized. Believing in and developing
kitsch out of such a racist in origin phenomenon, truly presents as a
fascinating development of one's own identity, internalizing within it,
feelings of inferiority such as those perceived by Cavafy. Here caution is to
be applied, for aesthetics without a sound core principle to underlie them,
leads to extremism and feelings of cultural superiority that can ultimately
culminate in racial intolerance and fascism.
DEAN KALIMNIOU
First published in NKEE on Saturday 26 April 2014
posted by PANEPIROTIC FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIA at Saturday, April 26, 2014
