It is with a tear in my eye that I post this entry. It dates back to 2009.
On my planet, the Kitsch Museum is still under construction. However, I check in from time to time to see what the competition is up to. Below is a conversation with Wieslaw Podgorski aka Hubert von Schnaps, a ventriloquist and former clown, who on the outskirts of Warsaw a few years ago, opened his own oasis of trash. Poland‟s first Museum of Kitsch (at 94 Wal Miedzeszynski St.) I don’t know what happened to this place afterwards, where all those objects bitten by the teeth of time were put together rather chaotically… If any of you have heard anything, let me know!
EDIT: In 2011 Wieslaw Podgórski took his own life.
In my dreams, or rather nightmares, the memory returns like a boomerang from a Palace of the Fears of Seductive Monsters (unbelievable!!!!). The tree on which Hubert von Schnaps hung a hundred pairs of dirty ballet shoes or pink-painted mannequins with their legs torn off…. Brr!
In great bewilderment, I began to ask questions:
What was your goal when you opened this museum?
Wieslaw Podgorski aka Hubert von Schnaps: That Poles should be able to identify with the culture of kitsch, because some people create kitsch unconsciously, and they should know that in a great collection, this kitsch is charming and creates a wonderful atmosphere for living, idyllic and in coexistence with neighbours.
I am having fun here, the definition of kitsch as the art of happiness appeals to me, but these exhibits here are some dummies, uglies, some hairy cows, skeletons! Who is their creator?
The creator of the exhibits is me and my trusted art animators. We collect various things. But soon – ho ho ho – whole trains of kitsch will come to us. We want to show them to those who are curious about the topic.
What kind of reactions do you expect?
I think the best. Those who don‟t like kitsch won‟t come, and those who love it will come more than once because we will be enriching ourselves with a new exhibition every week. For example, we now have the “Grunwald Panorama.” Someone may say that we are profaning Matejko, because the exhibition is titled “Jan Matejko as a super-master of national kitsch.” He created certain figures inconsistent with historical realities.
Do you think this is a trait of a kitsch player?
It is the symbol of the super-kitsch man. We considered in our imagination that this is what the Brave really looked like, or this is what Copernicus really looked like, but this is fantasy.
But after all, no painter who paints historical figures knew or knows what they actually looked like. Perhaps it is the privilege of artists to be able to do so?
He dressed in a Jewish women’s headpiece from the 18th century Hohenzolern in the painting “The Prussian Homage”, which took place in the 16th century, in 1525! My mommy would be proud that I remembered that date.
In your opinion, what is the difference between rag, shit, trash, pulp and kitsch?
A theatre play can be a trash, I think to myself. Also a painting. However, kitsch must have some naiveté, warmth, heartiness in it, it must have some color and colorfulness, then it will be the real dream kitsch.
Can you give a specific example of a rag?
Tyrolean canned food.
I am also interested in who is the author of the paintings we can see here. There is an outdoor gallery of pretty good oil paintings.
This fence exhibition is antique. These are authentic, in a good way, works by students of the Academy of Fine Arts from Krakow, Warsaw. We exhibited them as such a model of non-kicz. On the other hand, in the local gallery we have hunting kitsch, deer on the roar, lovebirds, wedding photos… Our parents took black and white photos, and then with the help of school tissue paper these photos were colored, sometimes mommy had green lips, purple went to her forehead. These were souvenirs of the so-called family kitsch.
So we have something non-kitsch in the kitsch museum. Aren’t you afraid that people will treat these, in your opinion, non-kitsch paintings as kitsch? After all, coming here, they may expect everything to be kitsch.
That’s why there will be a notice: anti-kitsch gallery.
But this information alone is kitschy!
Ah! This is precisely the point! All our explanations have a pinch of salt, irony, cynical acid. Thanks to the jokes, which are also information, the viewer can get acquainted with the incredible stories of the objects.
Kitsch for many people is a trivial phenomenon. To me, however, it perversely seems that it is you who trivializes kitsch. Do you have any deeper thoughts about kitsch? For example, is kitsch as a philosophical category of interest to you? Or perhaps kitsch as a way of interpreting reality, a way of life, an attitude towards the world? Do you follow the debates of cultural people concerning kitsch precisely?
In every era there was something that did not fit the era and it was rejected. In our era we also have such items. I reject Warhol. He was considered the idol of America, and for me this is a kitsch major. He cut out of a newspaper, then pasted it three times, made a color photocopy and became a star of that time. He hit the right time and place. He went down in history. Ties with Donald, which were kitschy, today can be a symbol of the classicism of the 1960s and 1970s. Retrospectives recall various items with a tear in the eye. There will also be a gallery of politicians soon, we will show one of the governments as very kitschy, and there will be a memorial book.
And in your opinion, is the current government less kitschy than the previous one or more so?
I for one must remain silent on this issue. I haven’t watched TV for a year, some things irritate me and most of all politicians.
What do you think about rich kitsch, that is, made for really big money? Will there also be room here for such kitsch, which is breathtaking if only in the way it is made? What I see here so far is chilling to the bone, that’s how sloppy it is.
We can’t afford expensive kitsch. We do it ourselves, without subsidies, we do these things ourselves. This sloppiness is also kitsch. Each of us surely has such friends who have rich kitsch in their homes, paneling, carpets, mosaics, terracotta seemingly from Spain and made in Otwock. Why is there such a thing here? At our neighbors we can see it.
Do you have your definition of kitsch?
No, I don’t.
Do you think there is any good definition?
Every person has arbitrariness. He can say what he likes. What he doesn’t like, he rejects.
I would like to refer to your past. You were an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture Andrzej Lepper. Is self-defense necessary in dealing with kitsch?
I don’t use self-defense anywhere. To me, the word self-defense is associated with the word self-defeat. This is what it has come to when it comes to the party. Kitsch for me personally gives me inner joy, from a young age I chose a kitsch profession, I was a clown, I chose it with conviction, maybe snobbery. It was a rare profession. Clowns during Gomulka and Gierek were eight in Poland. I took pride in it.
Was it because of your profession that Andrzej Lepper invited you to cooperate?
No. I prepared a very serious project. My skills are versatile. I designed a huge monument, 360 figures for the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald. This model will be on a separate exhibition first shown to the people of Warsaw next year. There will also be a retrospective of Matejko’s works and a story about the concept of Paderewski, who gave his monument to the nation. It will be a surprise for the Poles.
Are you serious about this?
Yes, serious. As the association? Citizen of Poland? We will put up this exhibition.
Where?
Under the Palace of Culture.
That is, under a building that is considered kitschy….
He is getting more and more beautiful against the background of skyscrapers. Such a monstrous grandfather of architecture. He is already more of a symbol than kitsch.
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