In the Kitsch-en
3 February 2023
I sit at the table – laptop out, an empy packet of crunchy granola ‘raisin bran’ awaits its transport to the recycling pile, reminding me that I don’t yet actually know when the binmen come. I’ve added another cardboard box to the overflowing pile of dry rubbish – and that will be full once the raisin bran goes in.
On the wall of the air BnB bungalow I’m staying in is a clear kitsch instruction - ‘EAT’ - the command is shouted at me in capital letters on a circular backing, made to look like it’s constructed from wooden slats, but also to look like a plate? - it is neither created ‘artfully’ from recycled wood nor is it a plate. Maybe it’s not meant to be a plate? Maybe it’s just a white circular backdrop for what someone must have thought would be an endearing word for me to meditate on whilst in the kitschen-livingroom. But I know it’s meant to be a plate because next to it an oversized spoon and fork hang from the wall – these too are reproductions, plastic I guess, and painted with a wood-grain effect to appear as though they have been hand-carved.
They are so convincing in fact that I couldn’t resist just now but to take a closer look – I lifted the fork off the nail on which it was so tenuously hung. It was heavy, weighted just like an exotic hardwood, but I could now see the brush marks, getting a sense that it was made from some kind of dense polymer. I tried to re-hang it and it dropped to the ground – of course I’ve just broken three of the four fork ends! Nightmare! Though it has proved my suspicions – behind the skin is a white, hard and brittle, almost crystalline material – it was molded after all. Ironically it will probably be almost impossible to replace – I’ll have to see what I can do with some super-glue.
This double fake is enlightening – the article provides an insight into the social environment. It seems that authenticity is no longer valued – so that the appearance of things becomes more important than the process or story behind the thing. These objects, displayed on the wall, unabashedly tell a story of creativity, bespoke endeavour, home-making, lightness and frivolity. But this story sits only on the very surface – a thin veil covering both the physical surface of the object and the metaphorical surface of my perception – just behind this film of awareness is a deeper, more complex story of extraction, mass production and acceptance of forgery. Post-truth apathy. A broken fake fork and all you can [think of is] EAT.