Kitsch art

What is kitsch art?

Kitsch art is an artistic category that deliberately balances between kitsch and high art. It takes banal, pleasing and sometimes downright saccharine motifs and raises them into collectable objects. And in doing so it poses a teasing question: where does kitsch actually end and art begin?

How does it appear?

It appears in the way that things we would normally dismiss as cheaply pleasing are given the scale, execution and context worthy of a gallery. What elsewhere looks like a souvenir or an ornament is here raised into a work that prompts serious debate. The whole charm of the category lies in that provocative game with taste.

Who are its main figures?

The flagship name of kitsch art is Jeff Koons, who turns pleasing, banal motifs into meticulously executed collectable objects. It was he who showed that playing with kitsch can stand at the very centre of the art world's attention.

How does kitsch art do on the market?

Thanks to names such as Jeff Koons, kitsch art attracts great attention from collectors and institutions alike. An originally banal, pleasing motif becomes a sought-after collectable object, wanted precisely because it stretches the line between kitsch and high art.

— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club