Not Altogether Worthless
Rae Johnsen
Not Altogether Worthless is a three-part print project examining the complicated history of kitsch. The term, first coined in 19th-century German markets, has come to connote cheap, tasteless, and sickeningly saccharine art and design that continue to divide the public.
"There Is No Kitsch, There Is Only Design!" is an endorse-folded, periodical-style typesetting of the article by Gert Selle, featuring images from the original 1984 work.
"365 'Worthless' Days" is a daily tear-away calendar that doubles as a complete transcript of "On Kitsch: A Symposium," a 1990 roundtable discussion of kitsch by various artists, scholars, and authors, including Gary Indiana and Susan Sontag.
Finally, "Not Altogether Worthless" is a 440-page anthology of kitsch, featuring images and texts by authors both supportive of and staunchly against kitsch. The broad scope of the book allows for a more complete and unfiltered view of the topic, touching on the silly and adorable manifestations of kitsch as well as the manipulative, offensive, and propagandized ones—an unfortunate but historically significant aspect of the art form's legacy.
The project does not itself argue for or against kitsch. Together, the three components simply ask us to ruminate on the possibility that our modern understanding of kitsch is largely rooted in elitist perspectives, and to reflect on how "bad taste" is used as an objective term despite kitsch's widespread and enduring appeal from the 1800s to today.