A Blessed Virgin in plaster, porcelain cats, garden gnomes, an Eiffel Tower in a snow globe, the scarlet innocence of a laughing Cow, Madonna's excesses, the plastic castles of a Disney park, Trump Tower and Instagram filters: kitsch is everywhere. It has even become, according to Gilles Lipovetsky, the very essence of our civilization. The discreet author of L'Ère du vide, a major work on contemporary individualism, publishes with Jean Serroy, cultural critic, a substantial essay on kitsch that has become the matrix and aesthetics of a civilization of "too much".
Let us recall the origin of the word: "kitsch" comes from the German Kitschen, which refers to the act of collecting waste or recycling something of poor value. The word "kitsch" appeared in the years 1860-1880 to evoke the first decorative objects produced by the industrial revolution to allow the petty bourgeoisie to imitate the standings of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. This is the first...
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