Living kitsch

Kitsch is a term that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an existing style. The term is also used more closely in referring to any art that is pretentious to the point of being in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass. Kitsch is most closely associated with art that is sentimental; however, it can be used to refer to any type of art that is deficient for similar reasons—whether it tries to appear sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative, kitsch is said to be a gesture imitative of the superficial appearances of art. It is often said that kitsch relies on merely repeating convention and formula, lacking the sense of creativity and originality displayed in genuine art. Kitsch became defined as an aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the consumer with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response. (Wikipedia)

After this brief introduction I present you my ultimate experience on kitsch.

Recently I spent few nights in a small hotel ... well, it worth to tell its name: Pensiunea King. Seeing only the name and the prices, after you have booked the room by phone, you might expect something of high class.

You enter innocently the establishment, get the key and start the experience. First of all you can hardly go upstairs as there are photocells at each step that switch on and off the lights as you walk along. That might seem very environmental friendly solution, but when you try to climb an unknown staircase with heavy luggage in your hands it's really dangerous. The walls are imitating bricks and colored with red.

Finally, you get to the second floor where a hilarious hall welcomes you. Wooden covered walls, other photocells that switch on and very quickly off the lights and "breathtaking" decorations: commercial photos of nude women cut from magazines or calendars in frame, giant plastic flowers, paintings presenting idyllic nature...




You enter the room and remain speechless... First thing that catches your eyes is again the brick-like reddish wall. After your brain survived this shock you realize that actually that is a bar-counter with all that it needs and doesn't need: bar chairs, disco ball, glasses, fridge, garden gnomes and plastic or ceramic flowers on the shells.

Then you want to explore the rest of the room and look around. An other surprise: the red wall continues and ends up in a huge fireplace, decorated with plastic bonsai trees. But there are also wooden logs put in ready to be light up... which might melt the plastic flowers put on them or even burn down the whole place as the whole stuff is made of plaster-boards.

But don't worry...
If you really want to light a fire in the fireplace you only have to switch on the button next to it and you have instantly artificial fire created with two lamps, some orange fabrics and an air-blower, that moves the fabrics! In a totally dark room it looks like real fire, indeed.

The exploration continues to the sleeping area, where you find an immense and luxuriantly decorated bed that looks like it was made of milk chocolate rather then wood. A same sort of wardrobe and bedroom tables accompany the arrangement. The decoration is educative: a hypothetical representation of a landscape, maybe from the Mars, considering the tone of the painting.

The lamps can be switched on by touching the glass, and even have different light-intensity after several touches. Very funny, indeed, until you realize that the manufacturer forgot to end the cycle with the switch-off touch. So you have to pull out the plug if you want to end the show. You might notice also the tiger-face mat under the lamp... I hope you won't expect me to comment this.



Finally, the bathroom... with photocells that control illumination and ventilation... again very environmental friendly solution if you tend to forget to switch off the lights when you leave the area. But if you stay relatively motionless for few minutes in certain places... you are left in totally darkness and you have to wave or even make desperate movements to be observed by the sensors. Having light again you notice some well-chosen objects that complete the picture.

The toilet brush support is actually an elephant with butterfly bow...

...some beer glasses have advanced to be tooth brush glasses...
and of course the plastic flowers can't be missed.


If you still have appetite you may descend to the restaurant where you already know what to expect regarding the sort of decoration and lights. (I deliberately avoid the word "style").

Being sick of all these you rush out to have fresh air and observe the front-side of the building and read on the board that the names of the companies that run this pension are: Promisiunea (=promise) , Limita (=limit) and Folli.

From this moment on your brain gives up the struggle and you resign...

But after you process all this shocks you put yourself questions.

Is there any hope people finally realize that all of this is a massive kitsch? Does it exist a way out of this horror?
I tried to present with humor and easiness but it is about a serious disorder that tend to infect the world. Lack of culture, aesthetic education and distortion of senses and incapacity in recognizing real values produce these monsters.
And even if I know that all these are junk I support indirectly the kitsch. Even if I never bought such objects I would pay for the hotel room and thus I would support kitsch industry. It would be a solution to boycott kitsch production simply ignoring kitsch products. But that would be a tough problem as modern world is based on mass kitsch production and kitsch living. Kitsch is cheap as it is easy to make and buy and cheapness is a major reason for millions of producers and consumers.
Worse is when people spend to much to make kitsch as it becomes expensive and then they consider that is luxury and fancy, like this hotel...
Should I pay other people stupidity?
I could have left the establishment on the motive that I won't pay for kitsch... but they wouldn't have understood and haven't learned anything from the lesson.