Defend the indefensible - Thomas Kinkade

I guess some of the commentaries imply that people buy his art because they are being convinced that it is an *investment*, which is bad. Reminds me of those collectors' plates infomercials ("some plates may go up in value, others may go down")

That's exactly what it's like. Mass marketed collector plates!

some crossover there for real

http://img1.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.232616317.jpg

Currently going for $19.99 on etsy

THOMAS KINKADE...do I really need to say more? He is the most incredible painter of our generation and now he is gone.
Here we have one of his full size collector's plates.
It measures approx. 8 1/2"

I'd buy it just to have a dog shit on it.

It's not too different from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XODJyE2ucfo

FWIW it has been my experience that defenders of Kinkade often embrace Koons, etc.

i'm not really defending kincade, just saying that the vocal hatred of his work from some quarters seems overblown and a little silly. koons is sometimes funny (how could you not love a giant chrome bunny?), but not terribly interesting outside that. more than anything else, he's a milemarker in the ongoing vampiric exploitation of warhol's ideas & legacy. rockwell and warhol tower over all of these simps.

Obviously it all depends on your stance about what art is supposed to do, and what definition of art you're using, but it's really not hard to see why things that make people feel warm feel and comfortable might be problematic to anyone skeptical of postmodern consumer culture's greatest excesses. Plus, people aren't supposed to like easy art, what with its subjecting of the masses to politically passive consumer positions, 'n all that. Also: the militant commodification of nostalgic visions, wrapped up in particular conservative worldviews.

I think the defense of Kinkade on solely formal grounds, might actually be a kind of an interesting discussion, if not a perhaps implausable one, at least given his status as a social phenomenon, more than anything you can already find on flickr, or just do yourself by scanning a calendar and putting the right photoshop effects on it.

But let us not continue to speak ill of the dea, but rather remember him as he was:

In 2006 John Dandois, Media Arts Group executive, recounted a story that on one occasion Kinkade became drunk at a Siegfried & Roy magic show in Las Vegas and began shouting "Codpiece! Codpiece!" at the performers. Eventually he was calmed by his mother.

(totally redeems him, by the way)

My intense dislike of Kinkade has very little to do with the warm and comfortable subject matter of his paintings. It's how he turned himself into an industry in the most manipulative ways, playing on faith and people's desire to have an heirloom that's worth some money in the future (which, I'm pretty sure, will NOT be the case with any Kinkade reproduction). Also, he was a drunk asshole.

lol @ kinkade apologism; you ppl are insane

or EDB otm

ime people dog on rockwell b/c he is lol naive and quaint, and kinkade b/c he is lol lowbrow; both of them are 'unsophisticated.' for my money kinkade is actually terrible.

Don't forget, above and beyond everything else, TK was a businessman, an extremely tactful one at that. The man knew how to sell people what they want, and how to make them want what he sells.

people buy his art because they are being convinced that it is an *investment*, which is bad

Is this different than the fine art world?

Yes.

Fine art is totally hit or miss, but Kinkade reproductions/prints/whatever are ALL MISS.

not really all that different from certain aspects of fine art, no.

kinkade belongs in the leroy neiman camp rather than the koons camp but the same reek of cynicism under all the perfume wafts pretty clearly from both camps.

I think what's missing from the discussion here is, what is it that takes the place of a Kinkade in the home of a more intellectual, discerning customer or otherwise patron of the arts? Holding him up against serious fine artists kind of feels cheap, they're working in different venues or something. In the words of It's Always Sunny, "What is this versus?"

I don't know, my parents have the odd Impressionist prints and mom DIY-decorates the walls with stencils and paint and stuff. My friends all either have their friends' local hipster art hanging up, or meticulously retro themed stuff curated from thrift stores. One time I knew a rich girl whose parents had lots of fine art, including a Matisse that was just randomly hanging in the bathroom.

people buy his art because they are being convinced that it is an *investment*, which is bad

Is this different than the fine art world?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, April 9, 2012 4:59 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not like this isn't an enormous problem for fine art either.

kinkade basically reminds me of one of those "starving artist sale at the airport best western" types who read a bunch of marketing books in the eatly 70s and a chuck jones lightbulb went off.

did kinkade intern under chuck jones, too?

re: unpretentious, non hi-falutin art, I feel kinkade's stuff is totally pretentious, totally hi-falutin, considering his cartooning peers are still work-for-hire stiffs. he's no bob ross.

xposts: To an extent isn't this kind of "versus" the idea of having to hang up anything at all? Like, I'd rather have bare walls than a TK print. But I think you're more or less right in identifying that it isn't inherently better than having a real matisse in your bathroom. The purposing of a Matisse painting by an only nominally-"cultured" art market - part and parcel of a system that produces taste in accordance to economic prowess - is a different side of the same coin. Kinda. To me, both express, in different ways and to varying degrees, the same "debasement" of the social and aesthetic capacity of art (or let's just say visual culture) within a capitalist society. Of course what that function exactly is and how it is attained isn't something anyone can objectively define. Though in the end, it's much harder to read kinkade against the grain of that, when not only is that what he's directly playing into (as is Koons), but also doesn't offer anything really beyond that.

what is it that takes the place of a Kinkade in the home of a more intellectual, discerning customer or otherwise patron of the arts?

seriously, i'd love to hear dan's take on kinkade since they, ostensibly at least, share issues of faith

I think it'd be cool to host a Kinkade retrospective and just have stills up from Fire & Ice.

a good question here re. relative respectability of owning low quality prints of 'high' art vs. original pieces of folk/flea market art that you enjoy even though they are of - say - flowers painted in 1976 with acrylic on velvet. (this discussion removing the whole issue of ironic appreciation).

I read the thread title, inexplicably, as Georgie Kinkladze. Ask a Mancunian.

lol @ kinkade apologism; you ppl are insane

or EDB otm

re EDB: i don't draw a line between art and other things that human beings do, make and sell. art isn't "supposed" to be anything; it just is. i don't fault kinkade's work for its comfortingly conservative nostalgia any more than i do the drug-store calendar art (art mentioned upthread) it so strongly resembles. the values encoded may not be mine, but they seem a fairly harmless and trivial instance of someone else's. nothing i feel i have to define as "the enemy".

as far as his unscrupulous hucksterism goes, that's not something i know much about. it does sound shady, but i have an equal and more informed contempt for the forced scarcity, "superior" pretensions and abject worship of wealth that characterize the fine art world.

Painter of Shite

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Monday, September 12, 2005 7:49 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

think this was mentioned but maybe not posted? Sorry if retreading

You mentored Ren and Stimpy's John Kricfalusi. But we can never forgive you for giving Thomas Kinkade his big break.
That son of a bitch! Kinkade was the coolest. If Kinkade wasn't a painter, he'd be one of those cult leaders. Kinkade came into my office with James Gurney when I was looking for background artists [for Fire and Ice]. He's a good painter, and he did a spiel. He made all these deals. How he went out and did what he did is beyond my understanding now. He's very, very talented, and he’s very, very much of a hustler. Those two things are in conflict. Is he talented? Oh yeah. Will he paint anything to make money? Oh yeah. Does he have any sort of moralistic view? No. He doesn't care about anything. He's as cheesy as they come.

http://www.vulture.com/2008/05/animator_ralph_bakshi_on_why_a.html

I read a comment mentioning the fact that his paintings are almost devoid of people. Pretty much the suburban housewife's dream isn't it? Beautiful cottages at sunset in an idyllic setting — and no neighbors in sight.

To an extent isn't this kind of "versus" the idea of having to hang up anything at all? Like, I'd rather have bare walls than a TK print. But I think you're more or less right in identifying that it isn't inherently better than having a real matisse in your bathroom. The purposing of a Matisse painting by an only nominally-"cultured" art market - part and parcel of a system that produces taste in accordance to economic prowess - is a different side of the same coin. Kinda. To me, both express, in different ways and to varying degrees, the same "debasement" of the social and aesthetic capacity of art (or let's just say visual culture) within a capitalist society.

eh, a great deal of the art distributed to the masses in non-capitalist societies argues that the 'debasement' of the social and aesthetic capacity of art is in no way a unique product of capitalism.

lack of people in the landscape sidesteps issues of color and class entirely; ANYONE could be living in those houses don'tchaknow
kinda surprised no one's done a trayvon being followed by zimmerman in a kinkade world image mashup

Pretty much the suburban housewife's dream isn't it? Beautiful cottages at sunset in an idyllic setting — and no neighbors in sight.

this doesn't ring true at all. from what i've noticed (admittedly informed/limited by my culture), "home as a place devoid of neighbors" is the ideal of the stereotypical suburban husband. the "suburban housewives" i've known have been very actively interested in each other's lives.

Before this thread turns into a totally stupid argument on the desires of suburban housewives, I am going to endorse watching "The Christmas Cottage" once more. It's about how Thomas Kinkade became an artist and it feels like a made for TV movie.

Maybe it's like, 'this was painted the moment after everyone ascended to heaven'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhGGaHvC1eA

IT HAS CHRIS ELLIOT IN A WIG

im not sure if we should be thanking bakshi for giving us john k either

The Kinkade background paintings they show in that Bakshi book are pretty damn generic & unremarkable. I doubt anyone would be highlighting them were it not for his future as a luminist.

abbott, is it on netflix instant?

Christmas COttage? No idea.

I really really dislike bashki

I also can't spell his name

the bakshi book abbbottt mentions is pretty grand. i dont love much of his work but i respect the enormity of his legacy and career

i've always seen kincade's stuff as an evocation of "lost home". like to really appreciate these paintings, you have to feel a profound longing for home and at the same time feel estranged from it. more than that, you have to be engaged in the process of (re)creating and moving towards "lost home". you have to be a believer/participant in home as a cargo cult. that's why we're always standing just at the end of the driveway, just about to arrive. it's why the little cottages are always ancient, something inherited rather than bought, and it's why the warmth of the light is so important. kincade paints pictures of the vanished past/home/family waiting to welcome us back into the fold. they imply that everything can be made right, safe and good again by means of our arrival. there's something poignant in this, the way the garish artificiality of the fantasy subverts the comfort on offer. to feel the pull of this art is to understand that "lost home" can't ever be attained, at least not in this world. which of course makes his cozy little cottages a perfect metaphor for the christian heaven...

Here's Nabin's take on it, with clips: http://www.avclub.com/articles/commemorative-keepsake-yuletide-case-file-152-thom,36618/

Also! The fun had with his DUI:

NEWSWIRE
Thomas Kinkade's new Christmas cottage is a California jail cell

http://www.avclub.com/articles/thomas-kinkades-new-christmas-cottage-is-a-califor,49286/

http://www.avclub.com/articles/painter-of-light-thomas-kinkade-arrested-for-dui-e,42171/

the kinkade-lisa frank axis of unicorns and lampposts

people buy his art because they are being convinced that it is an *investment*, which is bad

Is this different than the fine art world?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, April 9, 2012 4:59 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not like this isn't an enormous problem for fine art either.

― EDB, Monday, April 9, 2012 1:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well it exists at all levels of the art world, but it seems especially insidious at the level of inducing ordinary middle class people who REALLY don't know anything about "art as investment" to spend inordinate amounts of money on something that will almost inevitably be worth less than they paid.

But "sophsiticated customer" has proven to be kind of a misnomer in both art and finance, and there is bilking to be done at all levels. Really, art is almost never a good "investment" except at the very top levels, and preferably when it's being done by someone with enough market power or cachet to actually affect the prices of the art they "invest" in.

RIP weird dude, Lisa Frank was & is your superior in every way

xp remy!!

Well it exists at all levels of the art world, but it seems especially insidious at the level of inducing ordinary middle class people who REALLY don't know anything about "art as investment" to spend inordinate amounts of money on something that will almost inevitably be worth less than they paid.

somebody upthread compared it to beanie babies, which seems pretty apt

I have way too much to do to get into conceptually abstract and irresolvable topics, but

art isn't "supposed" to be anything; it just is.

True, but not really: This is kind of a modernist myth which conceals that, historically, art only ever exists within particular social frames that give it legibility as "art" (to hugely problematic ends). To posit art as a free floating entity that just "is" sort of radically declassifies it to the point of negating it's social and historical specificity. Obviously this is a contentious point to hold.

i don't fault kinkade's work for its comfortingly conservative nostalgia any more than i do the drug-store calendar art (art mentioned upthread) it so strongly resembles.

Me neither, I dislike both for that reason.