Thank you, Dripbook!

Thank you for featuring me in the newest Newsletter, Dripbook!

http://www.dripbook.com/kotryna/style/illustration-portfolios

New Work!

New work for Military Officer magazine (MOAA). The illustration is based on an article "Suspicious Mail", a cute story on a grandmother sending her grandson soldier candy corn by mail and him getting in trouble because of it. The story happens in Vietnam era, so the main task was to make this look vintage.

AD: Rose Richey

©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2014. For more check my portfolio at www.kata-illustration.com

For all those waiting for Spring

Art prints available at http://society6.com/kata_illustration,
©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2014, no print or electronic use without written permission

Ladies and Gent's,

Let me introduce you first 8 art prints from my newest spring-inspired collection of art prints available at Society6 (print on demand service) already!

I've started these series as a new greeting card collection for my very own Kata Kiosk, but before I launch those cards later this year, I thought why not to give it a try and upload them as a wall decor option too.

The success and attention to these in first few days exceeded my biggest expectations, and the Gramophone print even got on the front page of Society6 couple of days ago. I guess I'll keep doing these series beyond what was planned as greeting cards, because there are just to many vintage cuteness that I can't resist to illustrate.

Till then, please take a look at http://society6.com/kata_illustration

http://society6.com/kata_illustration
©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2014, no print or electronic use without written permission

On the front page of www.Society6.com

You can buy those as art prints, framed art prints or stretched canvases. Pricing starts at 25$.

KITSCH series, #2

Old promises kept. Finally found some time to split my undergraduate dissertation on Kitsch into series of 'articles'. The paper was written during my final year at Kingston University, Illustration and Animation BA. The thesis is Kitsch being a gatekeeper of ideology in both - communist and capitalist countries. In this part I research a kitschy cult of totalitarian leaders in Communist countries through out the 20th century. Feel free to quote but use a proper reference of 'Kotryna Zukauskaite, undergraduate dissertation 'KITSCH: GATEKEEPER OF IDEOLOGY', Kingston University, 2010' with a link to this post.

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KITSCH: GATEKEEPER OF IDEOLOGY, article series, #2.

for #1 click HERE

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TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST KITSCH

This chapter focuses on Totalitarian Communist Kitsch in former Soviet Union and some existing Communist regimes in countries like Turkmenistan or North Korea, and analyses how kitsch was and still is used for ideologising everyday life as well as “elite culture”.

The Kitschy Cult of a Political Leader

On one hand, the cult of political leader, head of Communist party, was and in some parts of the world still is, an essential part of Utopian Communist ideology and that is why it is a perfect subject to be kitsched. There would be few reasons why leaders of Communist Totalitarian regimes (such as Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev and others in USSR or Lukashenka, Kim Jong-il and Saparmurat Niyazov in contemporary Belarus, North Korea and Turkmenistan) would spread a cult of themselves. Those reasons vary from just personal egoism and narcissism to an attempt to be a reliable authority to the masses, the face of ideology (and in this way the face of a bright future) and a leader who is closer to the people in order not only to keep control on masses (the “Big Brother is watching you” effect) but also to get into closer connection with them:

Kitsch keeps a dictator in closer contact with the “soul” of the people. Should the official culture be one superior to the general mass-level, there would be a danger of isolation (8)

Particular examples could not vary more than it did in the former Soviet Union: official celebrations of leaders birthday, monuments and painted portraits in public places, such as hospitals, schools or universities, names of streets or even cities (Leniningrad instead of St. Petersburg or Staliningrad instead of Volgograd), poems, songs, even symphonies praising political leaders. As a witness to the communist regime in former Soviet Union, Rita Zukauskiene (b.1957), when asked about what signs of the cult of a Communist political leader she could remember from her childhood and years of the youth, recalls:

The attributes of Communist Party leaders were exposed everywhere, starting with official buildings, offices, ending with portraits of Soviet Communist Party leaders in kindergartens. Portraits of Party leaders were included in textbooks for students from the first to last grade in school. They were visible on TV, also as in huge posters on the outside of the buildings (9)

Why is that kitsch?

Because it does not provoke any discourse or doubt in unmistakable leadership in those visual, literal and other kinds of prayers to the leaders. That kind of kitsch ‘fills another kind of bill: it feeds the mass appetite for the ... sensational, and the supercolossal’(10). One of the most typical examples of that supercolossal kitsch of Communism occurs in the case of long-time leader of Turkmenistan, a former bureaucrat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Saparmurat Niyazov, who, after the collapse of the USSR, ‘styled himself Turkmenbashi, or “Father of all the Turkmen”, and spent enormous sums of money on building sumptuous memorials to his own wisdom’ (11) (such as a statues made out of gold (not only surfaced by gold) in center of Ashgabat (fig. 1) or Neutrality Arch, ‘a giant white tripod with an Eiffel Tower-type observation deck, the monument is capped with a spinning 39-foot-tall effigy of Mr. Niyazov.’(12), (fig. 2 A/B)). It should be pointed out that two very similar illustrations of two golden statues of the same leader (he never grows old in his portraits, always wears a suit and has some kind of a cloak behind him) are put into this paper purposely in order to prove that by using kitsch, ‘the same themes are varied in a hundred of different works’(13) and go even further by adding that: all kitsch that works on the same theme, looks almost the same.

This kind of official ‘art’ was dictated by Communist officials and leaders praised themselves, and all of the official and often national award-winning colossal “masterpieces” were mechanical (and by using word ‘mechanical’ I mean opposite to true creative-approach based art, that, as Hens Belting defines, ‘must continually take risks if it wants to remain true to itself’(14); kitschy approach towards any genre means mechanically repeating something that was once done without taking risk and trying to make a step further) and operated by default slogans which idolized the political leader as a “Father of the Nation” and this is the reason why it could be reasonably called Kitsch: it is ‘pretending to express something and you, by accepting it, are pretending to see.’(15)

On the other hand, it should be pointed out, that not all people were totally hypnotised by the cult of leader...

{....... sorry i had to take this part out because I don't have a permission to quote interviews with witnesses of Cult of a Leader in former SSRS that originally were in my dissertation........}

...These testimonies by people, who experienced the cult of political leader around themselves, show that next to the mass reaction there was an individual approach towards official kitsch and not all individuals were affected by “the Father of the Nation” cult and passiveness of mind that ‘characterizes the amazingly undemanding lover of kitsch.’(18)

To sum up, kitschy forms of the cult of totalitarian Communist regime leaders, were targeted into masses, in order to affect them in everyday life, to control them by creating a feeling that “the Father of the Nation is always with you”, to create an atmosphere of the only one omniscient leader that a nation can trust in, a strong reliable leader, “who knows all the answers”. And kitsch was a perfect way to do it because this style helped to create an illusion of something colossal and sensational, something that has does not doubt or ironize the subject purposely, and a context where, as Milan Kundera has precisely observed, ‘all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions.’(19)

Kitsch as a leading style of ideological propaganda

There were few reasons for kitsching ideological propaganda: to fake enthusiasm of all the nation in order to make the illusion of people voluntarily agreeing on political decisions, to hide the criminal side of a regime and to fill a gap that appeared after forbidding religion and (partly) local folk traditions.

To start with, communist ideological kitsch has grown from the top of Communist Party just after the Revolution ended and power was concentrated into the hands of a few Party members who somehow had to create an illusion of masses agreeing to political decisions made. But instead of revolutionary slogans becoming valued in the actual political system, they became mechanically repeated clichés, that only varied in form, but held no concept behind itself (they were kitsched):

Communist kitsch - depicting smiling workers in factories, young couples on tractors cultivating a collective farm or building a hydroelectric power station - played on the mythical values of the joy of work and the enthusiasm for building a classless society (20)

One of typical examples of such kitschy propaganda were posters, promoting (as if people had a choice) Kolkozes - commune-based farms - where everyone works for the good of “all the nation” (fig. 3). In reality, people were forced to join Kolkozes after all the land was nationalized, and the whole idea didn’t work because there was no real motivation to work harder if you personally didn’t get anything from it, so people just stole what they could steal, faked working when they could fake it and voted for accomplishing five year plan, when they were asked to. But the kitschy propaganda showed smiling faces, enthusiastic young people building the future, trying to persuade everyone that “all the nation” is happy about it and one, an individual, has voluntarily to join that mass. Other examples of such propaganda were iconic posters telling what is “already accomplished”, by declaring that “It Gets Better With Every Day” (fig. 4); this particular example is very typical because it includes not only industrial and agronomic elements to show the progress towards wealthy future but also because it represents a very typical image of a ‘Soviet woman’ (that was repeated in films, fashion magazines and other medias as an ideal Communist woman): a strong healthy body and a scarf represents her being a worker (‘proletarian’) who is ideologised by putting a medal on her chest, symbol of official accomplishments important for all society. This is one of many examples where ideology of hard work for better future is overshadowing other roles

of people in the society - she is not a mother, not a wife, she is not even very feminine because the aim of propaganda was to represent her as a true believer in Communism, a ‘true proletarian’ for whom ideology and ‘shared purposes’ are more important than anything else. To sum up, this kind of propaganda, typical Soviet kitsch, was faking enthusiasm of people to people; it was a ‘beautiful lie’(21) used in order to create an illusion of everyone enthusiastically agreeing on decisions by dictatorship and that illusion is kitsch by its nature.

Secondly, the dark side of the regime (concentration camps, mass-spying, deportations to Siberia, and etc.) could be overshadowed by ‘innocent’ kitschy images pointing out something, worth adoring, for example children (fig. 5, 6), as a new generation of Communism. Is it possible to doubt a face of a smiling child or ironize his dreams of becoming a heroic pilot? The answer to this question is “no, if you don’t want to doubt”, and masses needed just that - something reassuring, something that would point ones attention from the horrors of reality to something pure and innocent: ‘Kitsch comes to support our basic sentiments and beliefs, not to disturb or question them’(22). And this is where kitsch shows its true function in a totalitarian regime: ‘kitsch is a mask that hides death behind it’(23). To sum up, the second reason why propaganda was kitsched, was the need for sentiment which would mask the horrific reality of a totalitarian regime, and an image of a popular theme of a child following (militarized) dreams, was the perfect solution, because it united personal sentiment in your own experience (could there be stronger sentiment than a sentiment to a reckless childhood) together with a hope for better future, natural wish of all humankind.

Thirdly, kitsch filled the gap which appeared in society after the Communist regime kept repressing religious and (partly) authentic folk activities. Masses, feeling sentiments towards a lost tradition, is a perfect audience for kitsch to blossom, and in this case, forms of kitsch went beyond visuals: there were songs, poems, and - even more striking - military demonstrations on revolution or war related dates (North Korea, fig. 7: “General view of a ceremony to cerebrate 75th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army in Pyongyang April 25, 2007”. ‘North Korea celebrated with a grand parade on Wednesday the 75th birthday of its “invincible” army, which experts say is capable of dealing a quick and devastating blow, but is hollow at the core.’(24)) that brought to the masses an illusion of being part of something more powerful than a mankind (the same effect that different religious movements in history made of people by building striking interiors of temples or objects of worshiping). Communism was “a new religion” with its own celebrations, rituals and idols, persuading the masses of infallibility and the power of a regime. One of the best examples of Communism as a kitsched ritual was the main holidays of a year - “First of May” (“National Workers Day”) celebration (USSR, fig. 8):

On that occasion everybody pretended to be genuinely smiling, genuinely happy, genuinely gleeful; the idea is that they should all look like-genuinely conforming. It is not, as Kundera writes, the issue of politically conforming with communism but of conforming with existence as such. (25)

To conclude, the way that ideology was brought to the masses was kitsched beginning with every-day propaganda such as posters in streets and ending with big celebrations on “special occasions”. There were few reasons for doing that, such as keeping or at least faking the fading enthusiasm of Communist slogans, disguising the dark (criminal) side of a regime and filling the gap that appears when a regime forbids any spiritual activities, such as religion. Kitsch was a perfect solution for creating an illusion of the masses following an ideology voluntarily, and totalitarian regimes understood that better than anyone else.

Academism as the only appropriate style for the “elite culture”

Academism is always a leading style of “elite culture” of Communist Regimes. As Clement Greenberg pointed out, [in academism] ‘the really important issues are left untouched because they involve controversy’(26) and that is why it was and still is so appreciated in former USSR or countries like North Korea or Belarus by totalitarian leaders - there is no risk that artists will show any individual approach towards the subject by producing a work in an academical manner (which in Communist regimes developed from Social realism, style mostly developed by Repin in 19th century, that actually showed hard and poor reality of the nation in very realistic manner, (fig.9) into “social realism” (fig. 10)). This kind of “elite culture” in theaters, concerts or exhibitions at so called “Culture Houses”, and etc., was kitsch because it carried no concept, no provocation, no introvert experience to a spectator, just a celebration of what was already done by mechanical variations on the same themes: ‘something that has been done before, something that was once new and revolutionary but which has become ordinary’(27).

This is especially true in visual arts, where by mimicking Social Realism, Socialist realism was created: an enthusiastic working class, children or political leaders (fig. 10) or just apolitical themes such as greatness of nature (fig. 11) visualizer in a very technical, or even strikingly realistic manner with no signs of Avant-Guardian tendencies like in the rest of the world at the same time. The most recent and very typical example of this kind of Socialist Realism is ofcourse a famous photograph (‘an official picture taken at the end of talks that led to the freeing of two imprisoned American journalists’(28)) taken in North Korea in 2009 during the visit of president B.Clinton (fig.11). The background behind the politicians strikes one even more than a report about the visit that had to be the aim of the image. As a journalist of The Wall Street Journal has accurately observed in his article:

This is no ordinary painting but art with a purpose. What seem to our eye as limitations are the result of deliberate intent. It’s a piece of political propaganda. As such it belongs to a subspecies of kitsch known as totalitarian kitsch, where art’s sole raison d’etre is to bolster a dictatorial regime and glorify its leader.(29)

In this particular case, not only is an apolitical theme chosen, but the apolitical theme becomes political by its size and technical level - it is an example of the culmination of Totalitarian Academic kitsch, which is not only safe for a regime by being apolitical, but at the same time it manages to glorify the “greatness” of the regime by being put into the right context, for example in the background of the biggest political victory in recent decades.

Having said that, it should be mentioned that this paper does not argue the quality of any classical genre, developed in Communist regimes such as social-realistic theatre (often called “School of Stanislavski” referring to Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski, actor and theatre director of the first half of 20th century in Russia/USSR) or worldly-recognized school “innocent” classical ballet but points out that all modern (or the Avant-Guard) approaches towards the visual, literal or performing arts were strongly censored or forbidden because abstraction was considered to be a threat to the regime, something that might have an anti-regime message even when it didn’t. And that is why this “elite culture” in Communist regimes became one of the soil for kitsch to grow in, to develop its techniques, rather than conceptual approaches towards well-known “classical” themes and genres with no provocative meanings pointed to the viewer.

CONCLUSION of the TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST KITSCH chapter

In conclusion, it would be very hard to find a better quote than words by Roger Scruton to sum up this part of the paper about Totalitarian Communist Kitsch:

Great crimes and revolutions of our century have taken place behind a veil of kitsch: look at the art and propaganda of ... revolutionary Russia, and you will see the unmistakable sign of it—the gross sentimentality, the mechanical clichés, and the constant pretence at a higher life and a noble vision that can be obtained just like that, merely by putting on a uniform. Socialist realism ... and May Day parades — the best description of such things was once given to me by a Czech writer, at the time working underground: “kitsch with teeth.” (30)

Hopefully attempts towards research and analysis of kitschiness of cult of Totalitarian leader, ideological propaganda and academical approach to “elite culture” in this chapter of the paper proved that kitsch was and in some part of the worlds, still is, the safest style to glorify and bring ideology with all of its idols, manifestations and visuals to the people. That is why the power of kitsch as a gatekeeper of the ideology and danger to what is hidden behind kitschy surroundings inside the regime can not be overestimated.

#3 is coming soon

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8 Lewer, D. (ed) (2006) Post-Impressionism to World War II,
Oxford, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., pp.198

9 Interview with Rita Zukauskiene (Appendix 1, p. 31 )

10 Brown, C.F. (1975) Star-Spangled Kitsch. New York, Universe Books pp.9

11 Gurt, M. (2008) Turkmenistan to move gold statue of Turkmenbashi, Reuters. 3 May 2008.
[Online news agency]. http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL0355546520080503

12 Stern, D. L. (2008) A Turkmen Dismantles Reminders of Old Ruler. The New York Times, 5 May,
2008, [Online]. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/world/asia/05turkmen.html

13 Greenberg, Cl. (1939) Avant-Garde And Kitsch. Partisan Review, 6(5) 34-39 [Online].
Available at http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html

14 Belting, Hens (2003), Art History After Modernism.
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, pp.81

15 Scruton, R. (1999) Kitsch and the Modern Predicament. New York: City Journal, 9(1) 94-95
[Online]. Available at http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_urbanities_kitsch_and_the.html

18 Calinescu, M. (1977) Faces of Modernity. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, pp.260

19 Kundera, M. (1984) The Unbearable Lightness of Being. New York, Harper and Row, pp.254

20 Kulka, Th. (1996), Kitsch and Art. Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, pp.28

21 Greenberg, Cl. (1939) Avant-Garde And Kitsch. Partisan Review, 6(5) 34-39
[Online]. Available at < http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html>

22 Kulka, Th. (1996), Kitsch and Art. Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, pp.27

23 Mohebbi, S. (2007) Archetypal Intellectuals, Devastated Revolutionaries, Kitsch Mythologies,
And A Writer Who Dared To Look At Herslef. Bidoun 1(9)
[Online]. Available at http://www.bidoun.com/9_archetypcal.php

24 Anonymous (2007) Description of the image, Reuters. 25 April 2008.
[Online news agency]. http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/searchpopup?picId=648513

25 Bozilovic, N. (2007) Political Kitsch And Myth-Making Consciousness.
FACTA UNIVERSITATIS 6(1) 41-52

26 Greenberg, Cl. (1939) Avant-Garde And Kitsch. Partisan Review, 6(5) 34-39
[Online]. Available at < http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html>

27 Kaya, Devrğm (2004) A Research On The Possibility Of Distinguishing Kitsch And Art Using Philosophical Hermeneutics. M.A. dissertation, Middle East Technical University Ankara pp.73,74
[Online]. Available at < http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12605433/index.pdf>

28 Gibson, E. (2009) Why Dictators Love Kitsch. The Wall Street Journal, 10 August, 2009
[Online]. Available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574336383324209824.html

29 Gibson, E. (2009) Why Dictators Love Kitsch. The Wall Street Journal, 10 August, 2009
[Online]. Available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574336383324209824.html

30 Scruton, R. (1999) Kitsch and the Modern Predicament. New York: City Journal, 9(1) 94-95
[Online]. Available at < http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_urbanities_kitsch_and_the.html>

MATCHBOXES. Wonderful Lithuanian graphics

Wonderful old Lithuanian match-boxes promoting fire-safety i've found on ffffound.com and you can dig for more at www.flickr.com/photos/maraid/sets/72157594234429063 .
Designs are so wonderful - sharp, bright, straight-forward, clear, simple, powerful. Loved the colour-schemes and compositions - a lot to study here.

slogans on boxes:

One match can destroy a lot of trees
Don't forget to ventilate the oven before you turn it on
If you feel the smell of gas, call 04
Insure your life and property
Turn of (the kettle) before you leave
Hide away matches from children
In case of fire, call 01