Holly Kitschen: Collecting Religious Junk from the Street

by

Celeste Olalquiaga.

A little biography of her:

Celeste Olalquiaga is a cultural historian and an independent scholar who has

worked with residual aspect of the modernity as cultural imaginary. She has
published “Megalopolis: Contemporary Cultural Sensibilities (1992) and “The
Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kisch Sensibility” and also she wrote in
1995 “Holly Kitschen: Collecting Religious Junk from the Street” in the book
“Beyond the Fantastic” edited by the Cuban curator Gerardo Mosquera.

“Holly Kishchen: Collecting Religious Junk from the street”

“Holly Kishchen: Collecting Religious Junk from the street” is a reflection about
the circulation of the religious iconographies as a Kitsch to different proposes in
the visual culture even developing contradictions between traditions and their
uses as goods.

In the first part of her text Olalquiaga explains how the Catholic imaginary has
invaded markets and shopping in The U.S. Exposing trades and exchanges
between the traditional religious iconography and the sense of merchandising
represented in trinkets and junks offered in stores in Manhattan. Velvet
hangings with pictures of the Last Supper, The Sacred Heart of Jesus in T-shirts
or the image of John Paul II in different kind of gadget are examples of this
phenomenon. For Olalquiaga this “junk” Catholic iconography’s has invaded
galleries and museums and the numbers of artist who works with this mixed is
growing.

Supporting by this previous idea Olalquiaga exposes the case of “Altars”. Altars
(Altares in Spanish) are a popular tradition in Latin America in which people
build little domestic spaces dedicated to their deities and holy figures. This
“Altares” are decorated with candles, flowers. “Altares” involves a personal
relation with beliefs which is a particular value for the devotee. For this reason
they are unique and unrepeatable construction. The root of “Altares” can be
traced down to the Catholic tradition as a way to visualize public figures, in the
beginning political authorities and later people or events related to beliefs for
example saints or ancestors. This relation -for Olalquiaga- establishes a symbol
that transcends social and historical moments transforming it in a superlative
system of beliefs.
Olalquiaga exemplifies this with the Venezuelan cult of “Maria Lionza” a deity
who is revered with the pantheon of the Heroes of the Independence and also
accompanying to contemporary presidents. The relation is contradictory
because she represents a transcendental devotion and also the impersonal
juncture of the politics and mass culture.

The appropriation system is used by several visual artists, in Latin American

and in The U.S. Olalquiaga presents the case of the Cuban artist Leandro Soto
who creates “Home Altars” for Cuban revolutionary heroes. Olalquiaga also
explains that artists steal visual elements from the religious culture because
they can offer to the artist iconographic tools for shaping the original sense in
order to create a particular piece which is charged with attracting element,
easily to recognize and to assimilate by the public of the mass culture. In the
postmodern age the sense of space and time is substituted by a global time in
which the ethnographic differences between cultures are transformed in a
permanent senses of visual codes who give a permanent feeling of lived
through.

The difference -iconography in this case- is accepted despite to the real fact of
the difference. Olalquiaga comments that the aesthetics experience of
enjoyment provide to beholders resources to remove boundaries and
assimilate the new symbols as a part of this global and unlimited new system
of visual elements however, the vicariousness of the symbol is not assimilated
at all.

The cultural assimilation is a long process in which the “high” culture

experiment the vicariousness nonetheless, the uses of this iconography is just
part of -as Olalquiaga says- “waning effect” without indexical references and
with a great emphasis on signs. The homogenization of the signs, the liberation
of the information, trades and goods further the developing to converge of
religious issues and “kitsch” even disregarding the respect of the original
vicarious experience.

Olalquiaga remarks that not only the Catholicism is part of this game but also
Christian belief in a whole. Now the religious imaginary empty of the vicarious
meaning is a fertile ground to create a state of vulgarization against to sacred
hegemony of the religious system symbols. Olalquiaga says “Religious
imagery is considered kitsch because of its desacralization, while kitsch is
called evil and “anti-Christ in art” because of its artistic profanities”.

Olalquiaga thinks that the expansion of the postmodern notion of reality, easily
to assimilate and with a sceptical attitude over to the previous belief, and also
the homogenization of the visual images foment the expansion of kitsch as a
forced saturation of fragments devoid of real signification. So, this scenario is
illustrated by Olalquiaga like a “new altar”, a big pastiche of this new meaning
of reality produced in the mass culture.

Also, Olalquiaga recognize three possible degrees of kitsch according of their

means and cultural function. The first one offers an indexical reference with the
original icon. The representation of the symbol is direct and it’s possible to
recognize value on it, but the massive production or their low materials exhibit
some grade of difference with the original. For example, statuettes, images of
saints, scapularies have a perfect synchronicity with not only with the religious
iconographic but also they expose an extreme respect with the system of
belief. Is common considered this objects like a low art and in most cases are
signed not in the sphere of art as well in folklore.

Olalquiaga recognize in this degree a specific group of people who feel an

important range of immediacy with those objects like a part of a personal
satisfaction in a high level. This group is called “aficionados” and they are
indentifying by the strong feeling of pleasure with the meaning the objects
even in some cases by vicarious considerations, however the “aficionados” are
related only with the sensibility of this objects causes and not with the
devotional belief on the iconography.

Olalquiaga presents an example of the kitsch in this first degree. The fourteen
street fads of the pass years: The Christ Clocks. These clocks show different
scenes of Christ life’s in three dimensions according with the quarter time
which correspond to the chronological sequence of the Stations of the Cross
narration. Olalquiaga says “The Christ Clocks eschew the boredom of bareness,
naturalness and discretion to exploit the prudence of loudness dramatics and
sentimentality”. These clocks are a demonstration in a particular sense to the
extension of the concept of altar, because people usually put it on ordinary
places of their homes like kitchen walls. So, to “aficionados” these clocks
represent a powerful magnet which produces high levels of delectation by the
degree that its signification could produces but they have clarity that the
devotional status never be reached.

The second degree is also called by Olalquiaga “neo-kitsch”. This kitsch is

totally self-conscious of its condition producing a break down of the notion of
reality implied in the first iconic relation degree. Actually this operation attack
directly the absence of sentimentality appropriating this lack and produce a
new one deprive to the emotional significance of the first degree, in words of
Olalquiaga “a sort of kitsch-kitsch”.

“Little Rickie” a specialize store in the fourteenth street illustrate this concept.
In “Little Rickie” the costumers could find a widespread of product related with
religious imagery, all of them puts without hierarchy. Olalquiaga comments a
specific case of a plastic bottles with Virgin Mary shapes which contains holly
water. As well, this bottles could be part of the normal seeking of “aficionados”
in Little Rickie are offered in otherwise. For Olalquiaga these objects are
charged of the consciousness of their lacking devotional condition,
characterized by their sense of transaction and they belong to the realm of the
curious otherness whose stamp are fads and funnies contexts.

The value of the second degree product is just operating in the transaction act,
consummating its essence in its otherness. These products are recognize to
itself like a product with very less importance rather original ones, however
theses kitsch religious iconography are put it and transacted at the same level
of the rest of memorabilia. The degree of eccentricity is the decision reason in
the moment of the transaction. Their centers of production are usually in China
or Taiwan by a large scale of mechanical process, as Olalquiaga says, before of
1980 in the first kitsch degree, but using these products to fad or to fun is a
recent phenomenon, for this reason she considered denominate it as a “neo
kitsch”.

The third degree kitsch is an effect of the homogenization and commodification

of this visual system is legitimized by cultural institutions. In this third degree
kitsch, cultural agents like artists take the iconography and they invest with a
new or a foreign set of meaning, generating a third hybrid visual construction.
Taking about of previous example of “altares” several Chicanos and Nuyoricans
artists using images and the concept of the original altars to reaffirm their
sense of belonging with they previous heritage.

Amalia Mesa-Bains is a Chinana artist who makes “altares” with the intention
to recover her family tradition and her cultural identity. Her operation
constitutes a dully aware strategy. In 1987 in her works “Grotto of the Virgin”
she makes different “altares” reconstructed as a perfect hybrid in which the
Mexican painter Frida Khalo, the Mexican film superstar Dolores Del Río and
her own Grandmother are part of her own cultural pantheon. The original
devotional “Altar” is mixed with relevant iconic significance for Mexican culture
and also she incorporates in this construction her personal vicarious projection
of her ancestor.

According to Olalquiaga the process of this work is based on revert the

hierarchies. In the original “altares” context the deity is over to the personal
references, on the contrary Mesa-Bains replacing the divinity characters by
personal identification icons. Due to this operation is easily to visualize that her
strategy proposes a change of paradigm because the reading of the piece is
neither based on a devotional aspects nor transcendental issue in instead of
offer a new political dimension: The Chicano feminist’s claim.

Other important aspect is mentioned by Olalquiaga is about of the property of

significance. The home altars aesthetic are not exclusive property of Chicanos
or Nuyorricans artists. Dana Salvo a Bostonian photographer shows how these
altars could be not only a system of reference of the traditions or a
multiculturalism treatments but also proving how the original pieces having are
specials by their own aesthetic properties, so the photographs of this altars are
pieces for seduction by their visual qualities like textures, chromatics, shapes
and also by their meaning of ethnographic piece.

Other example appears in the work of Audrey Flack. This American painter has
taken of the Marian cult images of virgins to produce visual productions of
baroque virgins charged of drama with vivid colors. She rescues from the cult
the specific image that she need and prints each virgin a strong emotional
charge exploring but taking distance of the whole meaning of the original
Marian cult. In other words, she appropriates from any religions and she
producing a syncretism in which the original sublime dramatization is present.

Olalquiaga argues that the art strategy in the third-degree religious kitsch is
validating the aesthetic elements from Catholics iconography in art institutions
(art critics, museums and historians). This validation results in a distance of the
market kitsch which not needs a key to open circuits because its circuits are
opened by the cultural needs to absorption exoticism and otherness.

At this point the thesis of Clement Greenberg results suitable, because the
distinction between high and low culture is (in this postmodern age) erased by
the conceptual appropriation trap. In the crisis of the representation novelty
and artificiality are exposes like a part of a mandatory for artist who works with
visual strategies based on fakeness and simulations. Today they are competing
from a platform conquered in the late avant-garde. Olalquiaga says: “In post
modernity there is not space for such distances: fake and simulation are no
longer distinguishable from quotidian life. The boundaries between reality and
representation, themselves artificial, have been temporarily and perhaps
permanently suspended”.

Taking as examples the premise of Walter Benjamin about of the effectiveness

of nostalgic as a system to overcome the immediacy of perception and also the
concept of simulation on Baudrillard Olalquiaga holds that the absence of
signification in the visual, the cannibalization of images and a false appearance
of interchange gives support to the discourse of her third degree kitsch art.

It’s important remark that she distinguishes the differences producing with the
work on the first avant-garde. Olalquiaga says that Picasso takes the African
mask as a break with the west imagery. The operation in Picasso is taking
images from the otherness and due to the voiding of the meaning in which the
art of the first decade of the twenty century was creates a new dimension for
cubism.
Olalquiaga finish her essay reviewing some previous notes about her examples
and putting her emphasis in the actual conditions of Kitsch which seems to be
part of the appropriator culture’s. The hegemony of Kitsch produces that the
traditional consciousness of boundaries must be re-examinee in order to
determinate the degree of intervention or assimilation of this hybrid new
imagery. The images have been selected by artist for a specific reason and the
third degree kitsch is their result. This process has to be seen as a meeting
point of the different cultures even Olalquiaga refer to this as mutual
appropriation, because the appropriator need to put the stolen iconography in
their native field creating a multi-signification new stage’s erasing boundaries.