Best in tastelessness goes on show
How can we define the meaning of «kitsch»? That was the question which sparked off a collaboration between the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art and the free press magazine Parallaxi, leading to a project exploring the different views on the culture of kitsch as well as the various ways kitsch is displayed. The magazine ran a photography competition about kitsch today and its constant presence in daily life. Readers who chose to participate photographed anything they found harmful to their sense of aesthetics, discovering the bad taste that exists everywhere. City streets, shop windows, churches, buildings and even their own homes feature in the kitschiest of photographs. The 100 best images will go on display at the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art at 9 p.m. tonight, in an exhibition titled «Greatest Kitsch 2009: Kitsch Today.» Apart from readers’ contributions, the museum will also showcase objects from the kitsch collections of Christos Kalos and Clio Tantalidou. The exhibition’s aim was to create a dialogue on the outrageous and also allows visitors to vote for the best five photographs. The center’s director Syrago Tsiara has noted that kitsch, as a cultural phenomenon, is something that surfaced in the industrialized Western world at the same time as avant-garde. «Greatest Kitsch 2009: Kitsch Today» is curated by Domna Gounari and will run to May 10. Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art, Warehouse B1, Thessaloniki Port, tel 2310.546.683.
