V&A DUNDEE

Whilst visiting family in Dundee, I decided to pay a visit to the V&A museum.

They have an illustrious and thought provoking collection of fashion, design, and contemporary art.

This piece by Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane caught my eye. The huge letters, adorning the exterior wall and facing the vast Tay river and Tay bridge - can be seen for miles across Dundee. It serves as a reminder to the people of Dundee to not stand in the way of their own happiness. There is a clear relation to mental health and your inner saboteur. I felt moved by this, in particular to it's setting.

Exploring the museum, I came across a multitude of work that played into my own, from photography to graffiti, fabricated signage to typography, inspiration was everywhere.

Image 1 - V&A Fabricated letter sign

Image 2 - Print of famous Dundee comic Beano alphabet

Image 3 - Signage in 1930's New York

Image 4 - Signage in 1930's New York

Image 5 - Derelict buildings in 1930's New York

Image 6 - Dundee graffiti featured in Sohei Nishino's Diorama Map, Dundee

Image 7 - Graffiti chairs, anonymous

Image 8 - Graffiti chairs, anonymous

Image 9 - Projection of Las Vegas Neon

Image 10 - Close up of ceramic brush stroke by Ciara Phillips

Image 11 - Ciara Phillips mixes digital and ceramics in This, looped

Image 12 - Neon lithograph

KITSCH

Kitsch - from the german verkitschen - meaning to sell something cheaply - used to describe 'particularly cheap, vulgar and sentimental forms of popular and commercial culture'

"art, objects or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way ..."

A modern translation of Kitsch might be tacky or even chavvy - symbolising something made in poor taste, or by someone with no style. However, kitsch seems to have been appropriated ironically by the super stylist as the height of fashion. Something so kitsch that no one would dare to wear/have/use it. We have seen this with the resurgence of the early 2000s Y2K - McBling aesthetic. What was once fashionable and then terribly UNFASHIONABLE, has once again come full circle.

"but one person's kitsch is another's lovely table lamp – so how can we talk about it without revealing layers of snobbery?"

Who decides what is kitsch? Is there an authority that decides that something is kitsch and something else is high art? Isn't art subjective? One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Irony plays a huge part in kitsch. For example, the 'Fuck's' part of my own work. Diamantes are the ultimate kitsch - fake diamonds plastered over random objects around the home of a 'hun' with barbie pink carpets. A few years ago I wouldn't have dreamt of using diamantes on anything, let alone my final major project. My best friend even commented "WTF, never thought I'd see the day you put diamantes on anything." - therein lies the point. It's not my style, nor my taste, but the irony of spending 40+ hours adoring a swear word with 15,000 diamantes, is not lost on me!

I've used the diamantes as tool to attract the eye, and hope that the viewer should see the irony and humour in a 3 foot wide swear word, adorned with shiny crystals. Might they be doubly offended by the swearing AND the garish, gaudy crystals? Fingers crossed.

Appropriating the kitsch in a fine art piece is a sort of fuck you to those who might see it is as low art. Low or not, it took me bloody days to make, it's still art!

T SHIRT

I created a T-Shirt to go alongside my final piece. Using hot pink and silver glitter vinyl on a baby pink t shirt, hung on a diamante coat hanger. Combining multiple tacky tasteless things to create most Kitsch thing I could make. This addition to my space strengthens the signage as a branding opportunity. The shirt being 1 of 1 gives it an exclusivity and opulence that is ironic, considering it was all made from random pieces of stuff I had around my house. It was suggested that I should wear the shirt, but instead I chose to hang it alongside the signage it was derived from, to further reinforce the kitsch element of the layered meaning to my work.

Photograph by Julian Hughes