Goldsmiths - University of London

Christina Niederberger

THE QUEST FOR HEIMAT KITSCH AND LOCALIZED IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

My research is an investigation into the complexities of the concept of kitsch as it has been related to art in the context of contemporary painting. Working as a practising artist in a voluntary exile, I ask to which extent our experience of Heimat today can still be authentic and how a contemporary practice can provide for notions of belonging.

The first chapter gives an analysis of the literature that historically establishes the term in the 20th century. Greenberg and Adorno, representing the pre World War II conceptions, articulate most prominently a dichotomy between avant-garde art and kitsch as mutually exclusive opposites. Greenberg grasps the concept of kitsch in Marx’ theory of commodity fetishism, locating it in an aesthetic inadequacy of the populace. Adorno focuses on the dynamics of an all-encompassing exchange value in the culture industry of late Capitalism, which afflicts high and low art on an equal level. The contemporaneous inquiries, in contrast, such as Olalquiaga’s and Kulka’s, establish a historically relative concept of graduation, perceiving kitsch as embodied sentiment and the site of congealed memory and nostalgia.

In the second and third chapters I argue that the changing definitions of kitsch during the 20th century reflects the emergence of a discourse linking kitsch and belonging. In this context I suggest that belonging is intimately linked to the human condition and has deeper roots than essentially 19th century notions of nationalism.
Greenberg’s and Adorno’s discussions are reflections on a political crisis in Europe and the economic conditions of late Capitalism, which have rendered the notion of belonging highly problematic.
I will argue that in this context the repressed ‘home’ of Greenberg’s modernism in order to conceive a notion of art’s autonomy, is dialectical, such as it structurally ‘freezes’ the avant-garde in its relation to its opposite. Adorno’s position in contrast conceives mass culture and advanced art interdependent within a dynamic system that calibrates itself infinitely to the effect that avant-garde art has to adopt a stance of permanent ‘homelessness’.
I will argue that the concept of a homogenised modernity, based on a structural suppression of Surrealism and all that it connotes, returns as its uncanny double in the more recent discussions. These conceive kitsch exactly in this register of repetition of historical material, displacing thereby Greenberg’s notion of kitsch as an inversion, whereby High Art becomes kitsch and kitsch becomes High Art.
Within these conceptions Greenberg’s binary is superseded by the binary of kitsch and belonging, epitomised in notions of alienation in contemporary culture, whereby the “Heimlich” (the home) becomes the fake and “das Unheimliche” (the uncanny) the authentic.

The fourth chapter takes my own voluntary exile and studio practice as points of departure, expanding on kitsch and belonging through a discussion of three narratives of homecoming. This discussion aims at reinstating meaning into the notion of Heimat which, having been suppressed by Europe’s fascist past, has gained renewed urgency in the face of globalisation and mass migration.

The final chapter argues for a difference between art and culture, which conceives kitsch as replicated culture, and art as its disruptor, whereby kitsch serves as a tool of demarcation. Such an interpretation suggests a circularity to the argument, as it is always culture that defines art and by distinguishing art from artefact turns it into a commodity, kitsch.
If culture is no longer the inherent local, do we have to assume that it is precisely a nostalgia of kitsch culture today to still believe in some cultural essence? And if so, does kitsch remain the only thing that can still evoke some sort of localised identity? These will be the core questions of my concluding chapter.

Academic qualifications

Since 2003 Mphil/PhD, practice based research student, Goldsmiths College, University of London
2001 – 2002 MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths college, University of London
1996 – 1997 Postgraduate course, Byam Shaw School of Art, London
1996 BA(Hons), first class, Byam Shaw School of Art
1993 – 1996 Degree course, Byam Shaw School of Art
1992 – 1993 Foundation course, Heatherley School of Art 1989: Lic. phil. hist., first class, University of Bern, Switzerland
1981 – 1989 University of Bern, main subject: Psychology, secondary subjects: Pedagogy and Psychopathology
1980 Matura (Grammar school final exam certificate)
1968 – 1980 Attended schools in Bern, Switzerland

Presentations and exhibitions

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2006 Beautiful Paintings, Jill George Gallery, London
2006 Bilder Builder, Galerie Silvia Steiner, Switzerland
2005 Surface matters, Galerie Kabinett, Bern, Switzerland
2004 London works, Galerie Silvia Steiner, Biel, Switzerland
2003 Domestic Bliss, Kingsgate gallery, London
2003 Kabinett, Bern
2001 Show 1, Hat on Wall, Hatton wall, Clerkenwell, London
2000 Kabinett, Bern
1999 Four Pillars and a Lecture Hall, Swiss Embassy, London (curated by W. A. Brülhart, cultural attaché)

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2006 NY vs London, NYC, USA
2006 Royal Academy, London
2005 In Media, APT, Deptford, London
2004 Cinderella, London
2003 Jill George Gallery, London
2003 GODZILLA, London
2003 Art Fair: London, San Francisco, Toronto
2002 Bottles of the Wall, Montpelier pub, Queensroad, London (curated by S. Taylor, Goldsmiths University)
2001 Sadlers Wells, London 1999/2000: Kunsthalle Bern (curated by B. Fibicher)
1998 Art Futures, ART 98, London (curated by the Contemporary Art Society)
1997 Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland
1996 Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, London (curated by the Contemporary Art Society)
1994/1995 Kunsthalle Bern (curated by U. Look)
1994 Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland

Grants & awards

2004 – 2006 A. H. R. C. award
2002 Goldsmiths’ Warden purchase prize
2001/2002 A. H. R. B. award, London
1993 – 1997 Scholarship, Byam Shaw School of Art
1994 Shortlisted for the Aeschlimann/Corti Stipendium, Switzerland
1993 Full time Student Award, Heatherley School of Art

British Government Art Collection
Inselspital Bern, Switzerland
Goldsmiths collection

Professional activities

2001/2002 Via Felsenau, art and architecture, exterior lighting design for a new housing estate in Bern, Switzerland
2000/2001 Refurbishment of the main police station, Bern, Switzerland
1997 – 2001 Studio in Brixton, London
1997 Drawing workshop with first year students, Byam Shaw School of Art, London
1989 – 1992 Employed as a Psychologist in a child guidance clinic, Switzerland