SEARCH Vol.2: Kitsch
Author: Julia Merican; Driv Loo (Eds.)
Publisher: LAIN-LAIN DESIGN
Language: English
Pages: 156
Size: 19 x 25.5 cm
Weight:
495 g
Binding: Softcover
ISBN:
Availability:
In stock
Price:
€30.00
Product Description
The second issue of SEARCH delves into the meaning of 'Kitsch' in Southeast Asia, exploring its origins, its role in collective histories, and whether irony or genuine appreciation are key. It explores the aesthetic that thrives on mockery and critical contempt.
SEARCH is an independent creative magazine that seeks to uncover and investigate the designs, subcultures, and changemakers that are reshaping the creative landscape of Southeast Asia. Every issue explores a single theme by emphasising alternative local perspectives on art, design, and contemporary culture across Southeast Asia.
The word "kitsch" is laden with negativity. Defined as 'art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or senti-mentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way, it is usually accompanied by a slew of other less than complimentary adjectives: tacky, vulgar, banal, naive. Kitsch is shallow. It is too earnest. It has been accused of catering to consumerism, mass-production, and anti-intellectualism.
In this age of supreme information overload, where "good taste" has never been more subjective, how does kitsch operate? What makes something so bad it's good? When does "tacky" become "classic"; a box office flop, a cult film? What is recovered in these rampant reclamations of kitsch-ness, such as the reemergence of Y2K fashion trends, and what is left behind, or laid-once more, and maybe for good this time-to rest?
More importantly, for our purposes, what does "kitsch" mean in Southeast Asia? From bizarrely soulful and often contextually-confused backgrounds of karaoke songs to widely-circulated sentimental Chinese New Year greetings that have been forwarded many times to the particular aesthetic of fashion brands like motoguo, kitsch wears many hats across the region. Whose tastes are we setting as the gold standard in Southeast Asia, as we reckon with our collective histories? Is irony the deal here, or genuine appreciation for what is kitschy? Can one be ironically kitsch-as the Oxford English Dictionary definition believes-or does kitschness depend on its maker's sincerity?
These are the questions and gaps that we're delving into in the second volume of SEARCH. To quote Jones again: 'Let's pay homage to the aesthetic that thrives on mockery and critical contempt! - Julia Merican
Contributing Writers
ELLEN LEE
Ellen Lee is a writer and art manager based in Kuala Lumpur.
She currently assists with operations at The Back Room gallery while pursuing writing projects on a freelance basis.
She has worked with a range of Malaysian artists and art entities, the latter of which includes Snow Ng Advisory and Projects, OUR ArtProjects, ILHAM Gallery, CENDANA, and cloud projects.
JULIA MERICAN
Julia Merican is a writer, editor, and researcher from Kuala Lumpur. She writes about art, design, film, literature, and little things that are less easy to define, like letters found in secondhand books, or how sunlight falls onto brick walls. You can read more of her musings at juliamerican.carrd.co
LIM SHEAU YUN
Lim Sheau Yun (Sheau) is a writer, researcher, and designer.
She is the co-founder of cloud projects, a small independent publishing house and research collective in Kuala Lumpur.
She is currently pursuing her Masters in Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
VALERIE YOU
Valerie is an artist and writer exploring how our collective drive towards self-destruction becomes culturally coded through the consumer internet.
YVONNE TAN
Yvonne Tan is a writer and researcher based in Kuala Lumpur who tries to makes sense of modern life in its post-langkah Sheraton era by delving into topics like "Kiasuism: A Global Export" (Process Magazine, 2019), "A Brief Inquiry into "Bossku" (Projek Dialog, 2020) and "Nationalising the Kebaya in the Nusantara" (O for Other, 2020). When she is researching on dynamics of challenging imperial inequalities and processes of political change, she experiments with myth and history at @sejarahmitoslaku. Her mythology fiction has been featured in Kaleidoscope Japan: Online Exhibition (2022)."