An Aesthetic Approach to Toys as A Kitsch Element in Contemporary Art

In the twenty first century, we face the development of the presence of toys in the fine arts. They present a world of happiness to the addressee. Because of their universal language and the great emotional connotation, they inspire, toys, as attractive consumer goods, conform to some definitions of the kitsch. Thus, the use of this element in art in a comprehensive and exaggerated way can be considered as a combination of kitsch and art in order to eliminate boundaries between them. Discriminatory and status-making modernist attitudes defined kitsch as a trivial, emotional, stereotyped and imitative art having no creativity. From their point of view, kitsch was located at the lowest level of the culture and art hierarchy.
The word kitsch was first used in the nineteenth century to refer to inexpensive pictures sold as souvenirs to tourists. One frequently suggested etymological origin for the term is the German verb verkitschen, meaning to make cheaply. Thus, from its earliest usage, kitsch was linked with a cheap form of art. kitsch is a modern phenomenon. The authors who focus on the sociological and sociocultural aspects of the phenomenon emphasize that the proper conditions for both the consumption and the production of kitsch did not exist prior to the modern era. They invoke factors like the emergence of the middle class, urbanization and the influx of peasant populations to the towns, the decline of aristocracy, the disintegration of folk art and folk culture, increased literacy among the proletariat, more time for leisure, mass production, and technological progress, as preconditions for kitsch. Authors who are more concerned with its art-historical, stylistic, and aesthetic aspects consider kitsch to be an offspring of the Romantic Movement. The discourse on kitsch has changed tone. The concept, which in the early 20 century referred more to pretentious pseudo-art than to cute everyday objects, was attacked between the World Wars by theorists of modernity. The late 20th century scholars gazed at it with critical curiosity.
With the emergence of post-modernist thoughts in the 1960s and 1970s, the boundaries between the high art and the kitsch collapsed. Pop artists used stereotypes in their own works and theoretical discussions changed about kitsch. Post-modernist views assumed absolute freedom for all kinds of attitudes and accepted the possibility of being artistic in every kind of phenomenon with every kind of attitude. Nowadays, artists use kitsch and stereotypes extensively. Among the elements that artists enjoy as the main material of the artistic work, "toys" possess a special place.
 In the twenty first century, toys are presented increasingly in the fine arts. They appear in different forms of sculptures, Installation art, assemblage, images and a combination of these items and, with their various and attractive appearance, present a colorful and joyous world to the addressee. As a result, the artist transmutes the element of kitsch (toy) into an art that deserves aesthetic discussions. When the element of kitsch (toy) is refined by the artist's creativity, in addition to preserving its initial and recognizable identity, it enters other discourses. Here, you face two issues: first, redefinition of kitsch in the twenty first century and change of its surrounding discourses (with an emphasis on Sam Binkley's idea) and second, the artist's use of the element of toy (kitsch) in different forms and its involvement in the new discourses.
Sam Binkley is Professor of Sociology. He offers courses on the sociology of subjectivity, emotions and personal life, with a focus on power relations in contemporary society. His research examines the social production of subjectivity through lifestyle literatures and popular texts. He has undertaken studies of self-help literature and popular psychology, lifestyle movements of the 1970s, multi-cultural discourses, and the corporeal and emotional of neoliberalism, all with an eye toward the fashioning of subjectivity in these contexts.
Binkley not only redefines taste hierarchies but highlights the function and value of kitsch in contemporary life through its ability to re-embed the individual. Sam Binkley in Kitsch as a Repetitive System: A Problem for the Theory of Taste Hierarchy (2000) argues for breaking away from the traditional analyses that categories kitsch as bad taste, aligned with ‘taste habits’, class identities and crass consumerism. he argues that Modern societies, confronting individuals with unprecedented choices in consumer goods, ethical outlooks and life plans, undermine the security of conventional life with the promise of creative freedom – the freedom to choose oneself through one’s own taste expressions – with all the risk and danger this freedom invokes. What Giddens calls ‘ontological security’ is jeopardized as choices multiply and social life is increasingly disembodied, and as routines, recurring practices, comforting cosmologies and world views are shattered. In short, kitsch, which glories in its embeddedness in routines, its faithfulness to conventions, and its rootedness in the modest cadence of daily life, works to re-embed its consumers, to replenish stocks of ontological security, and to shore up a sense of cosmic coherence in an unstable world of challenge, innovation and creativity. Particularly where kitsch makes its most aggressive demands on our aesthetic sensibilities, in its appeals to sentiment, kitsch aims to re-embed its consumers on the ‘deepest’ personal level. Precisely by deflecting the creative, the innovative and the uncertain, kitsch advances the repetitive, the secure and the comfortable, supplying the reassurance that what is to come will resemble what has gone before, that the hazards of innovation and uncertainty are far away, and that one is safe and secure in the routines of an unadventurous genre.
This article is seeking to answer the research questions of how can the entrance of toys to the area of fine arts be defined and justified based on the contemporary approaches to kitsch? And how are toys used to define modern aesthetics by the contemporary art? According to its aim, this study is fundamental, and considering its method, it is descriptive-analytical. Library method has been used to collect the data. Based on the obtained results, some contemporary approaches interpret kitsch as alleviating the sense of ontological insecurity in the world full of abundant choices and risks. The sense of soothing that kitsch inspires and the sense of escaping from the reality and happiness that toys elude have a lot in common. Contemporary childish art places the addressee in an atmosphere that experiences mostly childish peace and happiness rather than philosophical-intellectual explorations. Moreover, the artist de-familiarizes toys (as a kitsch element) by making use of various methods and leads them to enter new discourses. The entrance of the toy element into the field of fine arts was contemporary with the emergence of neo-pop currents in the 1980s and 1990s. However, some other factors can be considered that helped it to stabilize and highlight its presence. It seems that the following interactions have not been ineffective in this respect:
The interaction between "philosophical-sociological discussions of postmodern age about kitsch" and "contemporary art".
The interaction between "Eastern contemporary art influenced by Eastern popular culture, specially Kawaii culture" and "contemporary pop art inheriting neo-pop currents and pop art in the 1960s".
The interaction between "Art Toy" and "contemporary art".

In contemporary art, toys are used in various forms; and visually evoke several discourses. This article considers four general categories for such kind of works:First, an imitation of childish items in much larger dimensions. Second, arrangements, assemblages and accompaniment of mass-produced toys. Third, works in which, merely, aesthetics of mass-produced toys is used and they are presented in one version. Forth, works that are influenced by the movement of "Art Toy". With increasing expansion of presence of toys in contemporary art, it is possible to consider the presence of novel aesthetics that is based on childish settings and use of toys and also bright and cheerful colors in the works.