第82期 新自由主义之后——KITSCH的起航（2013年）
学术主持：苏磊
主题：林天苗 洪浩 曹斐 梁硕 双飞艺术中心 TOF小组 江衡 陈飞
新作：刘可 范安翔 高雷 彭涛 熊明非 刘光光 喻子乘 宗燕
Issue No. 82(2013)
Theme: After the Neoliberalism – Kitsch, the Beginning
Academic Host: Su Lei
A.T: Lin Tianmiao, Hong Hao, Cao Fei, Liang Shuo, The Double Fly Art Center, TOF Group, Jiang Heng, Chen Fei
A.N: Liu Ke, Fan An Xiang, Gao Lei, Peng Tao, Xiong Mingfei, Liu Guanguang, Yu Zicheng, Zong Yan
新自由主义之后
——Kitsch的启航
After the Neoliberalism – Kitsch, the Beginning
学术主持：苏磊 ACADEMIC HOST: SU LEI
“后现代的境况事实上完美终结了从19世纪下半叶以来对所定义的艺术进程。尽管现代主义和形式主义尝试用一些成功来遮盖这个时代，但是它们最终失败了。在后现代情景之外，随着后殖民时代的霸权、文化等级以及英制单位的终结，旅行，消费和全球化的暴涨造成了艺术及其所谓的纯粹性的拆分与质疑。简而言之，艺术不再是美或者美术，一个文化的时代完美终结了。”
——伊夫·米歇尔
文化和新空间
始于70年代的新自由主义运动一直试图以自由贸易的思想取代凯恩斯的国家经济干预政策。但是这种一味地把社会推入全面市场化和金融化的做法，一方面导致了原有社会财富被投机分子和财阀在金融市场上所挟持；另一方面在电信、电子等新兴领域的资源被再次瓜分，而没有被分享。随之而来的是贫富差距的急剧扩大和资产阶级权贵与无产阶级在数量上不断增加。阶级力量的重构和阶级分野日趋明显是新自由主义带来的最主要的影响之一。
“新自由主义有着极端的反民主化。其次，新自由主义的核心是（社会）金融化，一切都商品化和金融化之后，个人很容易成为经济精英们资本积累的附属品，从而丧失个人观念和价值，这其实和自由主义最核心的价值观是背道而驰的。”
——大卫·哈维
资本垄断形成了类似极权政治的经济和文化社会控制体系，让保障自由个体的民主机制备受冲击。其内在的侵略性和单一性挤压了小而富于独创性的个体文化市场，无力上升的新文化只能回避性地奔向社会底层，希望在松散的新空间和更加开放的审美体系中获得新的活力。在亚洲，随着经济爆炸式的增长，第三世界在各个领域奋起直追，直接拥抱前卫思想。然而，在这种跳跃式的前卫思想和旧有的精英观念之间产生了巨大的空间，这给全球化的文化流动提供了新的场所。
Kitsch与混乱
“一个时代的终结和一个文化范式的终结不是世界的终结，也不是艺术自身的终结。它类似于蒸汽机时代和热力学时代是一个技术自身的终结。只是,这些艺术模式和艺术经验的繁殖，不在追求高或者精炼,尤其不再被组织到一个崇尚审美之美的艺术系统里罢了。”
——伊夫·米歇尔
Kitsch艺术最早是一种为低端装饰品市场制造的廉价复制品。这个词起源于德语Verkitschen“街上的垃圾”，在中文有时候被翻译为“媚俗”。它起先代表着一种价值判断，即把极低成本的材料按照经典模式（比如巴洛克风格）简易加工后按照建材装饰品卖给城乡之间的廉价别墅。此后，类似方式生产的廉价产品逐步扩散到整个日常生活。在文化上，这些以廉价销售为目的的劣质复制品常常混合了不同的象征影像和审美符号，形成一种模糊、混乱、拙劣刺眼的装饰风格。趣味的混乱、审美的无标准伴以观者调侃的态度，造成了Kitsch艺术五味杂陈的味道，这实际涉及一个主观情感和客观标准的问题。
大卫·胡姆（David Hume）曾经长期专注于感觉和趣味准则的研究，其主要问题在于“感觉和趣味是否可以相互协调一致？”、“如何围绕不同的趣味范式、价值和标准进行审美的评估？” 结果，第一个问题后来发现是无解的，感觉天生具有主观、公正、真实、内在的特性，它不需要外在的参考，而其真实性也不需要和某一标准保持一致。对于第二个问题，他认为审美的判断远比个体内在的真实性要复杂得多。每个人都有他独特的趣味，相似的趣味逐渐结成不同的审美领域并且在内部形成不同的规则和逻辑。从这个角度来看，艺术史中的很多活动是根据其性质和规则来实现的。就如同极少主义艺术、印象派艺术、抽象表现主义艺术、概念装置艺术等都有其自身的创作逻辑和规则。这些逻辑和规则如同刻度一般成为审美标准，并且在不同审美领域内作为身份评估的条件。而另一方面，艺术家根据逻辑和规则生产作品，制造差异。这样，问题就聚焦于：当主观情感被置于不同领域的标准和规范中时，它不再开放、纯粹；而是被修改、绑定并且融入某种模式。只有在这些模式和标准被尽量减弱的时候，私密的真实情感才会最大程度地喷发，这也许就是今年江南style在全世界大受欢迎的原因。
坏趣味常常位于标准体系之外或者标准的底层——一个没有阶级刻度的区间。它被视为一种以刺激眼球为原则而建造的非逻辑的混合，一种不再按照已有审美标准按部就班的视觉组合。规则的失效在很大程度上释放了隐藏的真实情感，它从此不再在任何固有的审美领域里具有约束性，来自不同审美体系的符号失去在其原有领地的坚固性后，变得富于流动性和易于移植。它们在社会缝隙中游弋、聚集，把游离的个体吸纳进去，重构成一个新的开放体系。这样的情况首先发生于秩序混乱的低级阶级里。比如，18世纪欧洲妓女的着装方式是Kitsch和坏趣味的经典景观。低贱的社会地位让她们反而拥有了做每一件事情的合法性——为了招客，她们不再遵循上流社会的着装规范，而是急于将大把的廉价首饰和花边等贵族趣味的劣质复制品集中于开放的肉欲的女性身体上，从而合成极具吸引力的开放体系。
开放体系的建立模糊了布尔迪厄“趣味分层”系统中的阶级刻度和审美边界，异类符号的混合让其不再具有统一的评判标准。在从未真正实现过“趣味绝对平等”的人类历史中，这隐含着对固有制度的潜在仇恨和一种冲动性的破坏美学形式。另一方面，Kitsch平滑乳汁般渗透过程，暗含了文化共有的内在匀质化功能以及对原有地方文化的排斥活动。它内在地逐步建立起一个无隔阂的文化系统，并成为不断膨胀的社会弥合剂。 今天的审美趣味之判断正是基于一个公共世界的条件，一个社会的世界，一个主体间相互交流的世界，而不再是怀疑论和悲剧的世界论调。
个体和开放世界
我认为在世界资本主义中，多元文化主义是真实的。我认为，我们不能假装认为，资本主义是某种文化统治的掩饰手段；也就是认为资本主义实际上代表着欧洲或美国文化的统治。不！现代资本主义是真正多国的以及多文化的，因为它没有最终的社会文化所指。资本主义真正的恐怖之处就在于它没有根源。从这个意义上说，它是真实界；是一个无根的抽象符号机器。
——齐泽克《那么消费社会是不是就是今天的新极权呢?》
Kitsch的全球蔓延建立一个社会化的开放的审美影像系统，并且深刻地影响每个个体在全球化中的心态。它同时在国家系统内部扮演了文化工业化的角色，也肩负了新的社会慰籍和重新组合的功能。原有审美系统和价值体系的坍塌，为个体自由创作的文化工业时代做好了准备。这使得全世界的文化接近于一种公共分母，而个体成为不同的分子的状态。
那么，什么是作为“分母”的核心概念呢？就是Kitsch所建立的“永恒开放”系统。重要的是Kitsch的诱惑性，在吸纳个体的时候，也为其打开了通往任何方向的欲望之门，以至使得其不再具有方向性。另一方面，个体因具有自由创作的形式而滑向主观主义和自恋癖的伊甸园。如果我们把这种自由创作的形式放在更广阔的社会空间中观察，大众文化不再被某些权力强行赋予；整体的文化景观由每个个体的直接参与而形成，每个人都有权来描述和治理社会的未来。这场的深刻的结构性的大众文化运动，引发了无数个体把自己的文化勇敢投向现实景观。喧嚣、异质的多样性文化自然而然地和自由主义的进程联系到一起，直至最终在后现代、新自由主义和Kitsch之间结成联盟。一切由Kitsch制造的混乱开始，它帮助建立一个无隔阂的、完全基于开放性之上的社会体系。
这将是一个基于绝对自由愿望而建构的新人类的系统，它将是一个永恒开放、变动中的世界。因此，它也要求建立一个个体化的可以融合经验、情感、信息等等的文化杂交体系。 这种类似于后达尔文主义的社会，将充满了随机性。尽管有很多连接上的不可预测性，但是开放性原则将引发最大胆的文化相互渗透和积累，它将在美术史里产生一种对创作动机等方面观念性的大调整，并且将以全新的开放性原则的视角继续展开。
北京
2013/01
“As a matter of fact, the post-modern situation perfectly put an end to the process of the defined art since the latter half of the 19th century. Despite their effort to cover up this era through some successes, modernism and formalism eventually failed. Outside the post-modern situation, travel, consumption and the booming globalization led to the split and doubt of art and its so-called purity, along with the ending of post-colonial hegemony, cultural hierarchy and Imperial unit system. In a nutshell, art is no longer beauty or fine arts, a cultural era has ended in perfection.”
By Yves Michaud
Culture and New Space
The Neoliberalism Movement, which started in the 1970s, has always attempted to replace the national economic intervention policy of Keynes with the idea of free trade. But on one hand this approach that blindly pushed the society into full marketization and financialization led to the hijack of the original social wealth by opportunists and plutocrats in the financial market; on the other it resulted in the resources of burgeoning fields like telecom and electronics being divided up again instead of being shared. Consequently what follows are the drastic widening gap of wealth and the continuous increase in numbers of Bourgeois dignitaries and proletariat. The reconstruction of class forces and the increasingly apparent class division are one of the major influences brought by the Neoliberalism.
“The neoliberalism comes with extreme anti-democratization. Secondly, the core to neoliberalism is financialization (of the society). When everything becomes commercialized and financialized, individuals will be easily reduced to the appendages of capital accumulation of economic elites, resulting in the loss of individual concepts and values, which goes straightly against the most core value of liberlism.”
By David Harvey
Capital monopoly formed a quasi-totalitarian social control system of economy and culture, lashing against the democratic system that ensures individual freedom. Its inner aggressiveness and unicity have crashed the little yet original individual cultural market, resulting in the new culture which fails to ascend avoidantly returning to the bottom rung of the society, hoping to acquire new vitality in a loose new space and more open aesthetic system. With the explosive economic growth in Asia, countries of the third world leapt ahead in every field, embracing directly the avant-garde ideas. Nevertheless, a huge space was created between this leaping avant-garde ideas and old elite concept, providing a new place for the cultural flow of globalization.
KITSCH and Chaos
“The end of an era and a cultural form is not the end of the world, nor the end of art itself, but that of a technique it self, just like the eras of steam engines and thermodynamics. It’s just that the propagation of these art forms and experiences is no longer aiming for high quality or refinement, much less being organized into an art system that upholds the beauty of aesthetics.”
By Yves Michaud
Originated from the German word “verkitschen”, which means “garbage on the street”and sometimes translated into Chinese as “vulgarity”, kitsch was initially a kind of cheap replica made by the low-end decoration market. At first it stood for a kind of judgment of values, that is, selling them to the rural low-end villas as construction materials and decorations after some simple processing of the extremely cheap materials modeling the classic style (e.g. Baroque). Since then, similar inexpensive products gradually infiltrated into every corner of daily life. Culturally speaking, these inferior replicas with the intention to sell cheap are often mixed with a variety of symbolic images and aesthetic signs, creating an ambiguous, chaotic, clumsy and offending style of decoration. The chaos of tastes, the lack of aesthetic standard along with the ridicule attitude of spectators, result in a great mixture of flavor of the KITSCH Art, which actually involves a question of subjective emotions and objective standards.
David Hume had for long focused on the research of the criteria of feelings and tastes, the major questions of which are “Can feelings and tastes coordinate with each other?”and “How to carry out aesthetic evaluation involving different taste modes, values and standards?”As it turned out, there’s no solution to the first question, for feeling are innately subjective, fair, true and inherent with no need for exterior reference or keeping pace with some standard. As for the second question, he deemed aesthetic judgment to be far more complicated than the inner authenticity of individual. Everyone has his/her own unique tastes, and gradually similar tastes converge into different aesthetic fields and from different rules and logics within. From this aspect, a lot of activities in the art history were achieved according to its nature and rules, just like arts of minimalism, impressionism, abstract expressionism, concept device, etc. with their own creative logics and rules, which like scales, have become aesthetic standards as well as conditions for identity evaluation in different aesthetic fields. On the other hand, artists create differences while producing works according to logics and rules. So the question is: when placed under rules and norms of different fields, the subjective feelings are no longer open and pure; instead they become edited, bound and integrated into some mode. Only when these modes and standards are weakened as much as possible can the private authentic feelings burst out in the greatest dimension. Maybe that’s why Gongnam Style was such a worldwide hit this year.
Bad tastes are often outside the standard system or at the bottom of standards-a space without scales of class. It’s considered an illogical mixture with provocative intention, a visual combination that no longer follows the procedure of the existing aesthetic standards. The invalidity of rules has to a great extent set free the hidden authentic feelings, hence losing its binding force in any inherent aesthetic field. Symbols from different aesthetic systems have become fluid and implantable after losing their solidity in their original territory. They cruise and converge in the cracks of the society, taking in dissociative individuals and reconstructing a new open system. Such cases first happened in the chaotic underclass. For example, the way18th-century European prostitutes dressed themselves is considered to be a classic spectacle of Kitsch and bad tastes. Their low social status granted them the legitimacy of their actions-for solicitation, they no longer complied to the dress code of the upper society, instead they would heap inferior replicas of aristocratic tastes on the open and sensual feminine bodies, like cheap accessories and laces, thus composing an extremely enticing open system.
The establishment of the open system obscured the class scales and aesthetic boundaries of Bourdieu’s “Taste Layers”, the mixture of heterogeneous symbols resulting in the lack of unified judging criteria. In a human history where “the absolute equality of tastes”has never really been achieved, this implicates a latent hatred towards the existing systems and an impulsive form of the art of destruction. On the other hand, Kitsch smoothly infiltrates the process, implying culture’s common inner function of homogenization as well as the rejection of the original local culture. Gradually it builds a barrier-free cultural system inside, serving as an ever-inflating glue of society. Today’s aesthetic taste is exactly based upon the conditions of a public world, a societal world, and a world where subjects exchange and communicate instead of tones of a skeptical and tragic world.
Individuals and Open World
In my opinion, the multiculturalism is real in the world capitalism. I don’t think we could pretend that capitalism is the cover up of some cultural domination, i.e. capitalism actually represents the rule of European or American cultures. No! The modern capitalism is truly multi-national and multi-cultural due to its lack of an eventual referent of social culture. The real horror about the capitalism lies in its rootlessness. In this sense, it is the Real; a rootless machine of abstract symbols.
by Zizek Is the Consumer Society Today’s New Totalitarian?
The global sprawl of Kitsch created a socialized open aesthetic image system, bringing huge impact on the mentality of each individual in the globalization. It also undertook the role of cultural industrialization in the national system while performing the new functions of social comfort and restructuring. The collapse of the original aesthetic system and value system has prepared for the cultural industry era of free creation of individuals, rendering the culture of the whole world to be a common denominator while individuals different numerators.
Then what’s the core concept of “denominator”? The answer is the “eternal open” system established by KITSCH. What’s important is the alluring quality of Kitsch that while taking in individuals it opens to them the door of desire to any direction, rendering them direction-less. On the other hand, individuals slip into an Eden of subjectivism and narcissism due to its form of free creation, which if observed in a broader social space, results in mass culture no longer imposed by some power, the overall cultural landscape formed through the direct participation of each individual and everyone enjoying the right to describe and administer the future of the society. This deep structural mass culture movement inspired countless individual to cast their own cultures into the landscape of reality. Uproaring and heterogeneous diversified culture naturally relates with the process of liberalism until eventually the new liberalism and Kitsch form an alliance in the post-modernity. Everything starts from the chaos created by Kitsch, which helped build a barrier-free social system that’s totally based upon openness.
This will be a new human system built upon the wish of absolute freedom, an eternal open and changing world. Therefore, it also requires the establishment of an individualized cultural hybrid system that could integrate experiences, emotions and information, etc. together. This quasi-post-Darwinism society will be full of randomness. Despite a lot of unpredictability in connection, the open policy will provoke the boldest mutual infiltration and accumulation of culture, bringing a drastic conceptual adjustment in aspects like creative motives and carrying on from the aspect of a brand new open policy.
Beijing
2013.1