August 24, 2008

Modern Design and the Primitive

Modern is the opposite of primitive?  Not exactly. These categories have been closely linked ever since people first began to think of themselves as modern.  For example, let’s look at the connections between “ethnic” furniture, modernism and the primitive. Since the late eighteenth century, people have been ambivalent about primitivism.  We can trace this back to the romantic philosopher Rousseau. He argued that the modern way of life with its claims to rationality and civilisation sacrifices a purer, deeper, more emotional understanding of the world. To be closer to nature is to be closer to our own true nature as human beings.  Rousseau coined the phrase “the noble savage” suggesting that despite all its many benefits — modern life has sacrificed much that is essential to emotional well-being.

The Tusk Coffee table by James Duncan

So what does all this have to do with art and design?  A lot, actually.  As part of the romantic critique of modern European civilisation in the late 18^th century, prosperous people decorated their houses with objects from the South Seas, India, the Middle East and the Orient.  At this time statues of black pages became fashionable, Chinoiserie, the ottoman, the divan, the sofa were introduced and European and American women began wearing turbans. All of this was driven by the romantic cult of the pre-modern.  In this way  people show not only that they are cultured and well travelled, but also in touch with nature and their inner emotional selves. 

The Trocadero Dining Table By James Duncan

This romantic valuing of the primitive continued to build throughout the nineteenth century as Europe colonized Africa.  By the end of the century European museums were full of African tribal objects.  The Trocadero Museum in Paris had a magnificent collection of tribal masks and totems from the French possessions in equatorial Africa.  These objects were thought of — not as serious art — but as fascinating curiosities produced by savage cultures.  Then all this changed in 1907.  Picasso and other modernist painters and sculptors like Matisse, Brancusi and Giocometti visited the Trocadero and proclaimed that these ‘primitive’ objects were ART.   Picasso was deeply influenced by African tribal art as in his “Les demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907), considered to be among the most important modernist paintings of the twentieth century.

Modernists like Picasso were drawn to primitive art because they accepted the romantic view that the primitive was closer to nature, more pure, sensual and unencumbered by the shallowness of modern life.  They believed that  those who produced these objects were in touch with the true source of artistic creativity deep in the psyche.  Picasso and the modernists claimed that primitivism lay at the very heart of what modern art was trying to do.

The romantic cult of the African tribal was expressed in different media.  One can see it in Man Ray’s famous photograph, “Noire et Blanche (1926)”, or in the cult of Josephine Baker in 1920s Paris as an eroticised black woman.  (See below a link to some great old footage). http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=mq3a2Ttxvdw&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i2.ytimg.com/vi/mq3a2Ttxvdw/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskIyhylKjurOBPM96AF7nCNa&use_get_video_info=1&load_modules=1

Likewise, jazz arose as an elemental form of black music.  African masks and statues, tribal stools increasingly appeared in the most sophisticated houses.

At the moment there is a growing interest in “ethnic” furniture, African motifs and sculpture. People who have tribal pieces in their homes may not necessarily be aware of the history of their modernist taste for the primitive. Nevertheless, the appreciation of the primitive has long been an element in our sense of being modern.

Resin Drum Table by James Duncan

Most of us think we know kitsch when we see it: black velvet paintings of Elvis, the Luxor Hotel/Casino in Vegas, or Starck’s dwarf stools. We will return to Starck’s take on kitsch later, because it is, of course, different from my other two examples. For the time being let’s agree that all three are iconic forms of kitsch. That said, I have a problem with this commonsense view of kitsch-namely, that it hides from us the vast tide of kitsch that has washed over western culture during the past two centuries.

Simply put, we are drowning in kitsch, but by focusing on its iconic forms, we deceive ourselves about its true extent. Let’s take a little jaunt through what I see as the lost history of kitsch because only then can we begin to see how pervasive it is.

In the standard histories of the term, kitsch originated in Munich in the 1860s, where it condescendingly described nouveau riche taste for vulgar, expensive, and sentimentalized copies of fine art works in painting and furniture. By the early twentieth century the term was used by proponents of modern design to critique overly sentimental, nostalgic or melodramatic Victorian painting, sculpture and interior design.

As such, Kitsch is nothing less than a deep cultural reaction against
modernity-where modernity is an unsentimental challenge to the past, kitsch is a nostalgic celebration of the idea of the traditional, an attempt to return to “a world we have lost.”

If we understand kitsch in this light, then we can begin to see how pervasive it is: traditional design that is sentimentalised as the reassuringly familiar, the cozy, the comfy, homey or cute.

This definition of kitsch as a nostalgic attitude towards tradition not only takes in the usual suspects, such as the cloyingly sentimental Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kincade in art, or cheap knock offs of American colonial furniture, but also the more upmarket taste of some of the Relais et Chateaux hotel chain or the palatial marble and gold plated living rooms that feature regularly in design magazines. The pretentiousness of such expensive kitsch is what the citizens of Munich had in mind when they coined the term kitsch in the 1860s.

While kitsch, as I have said, is becoming increasingly pervasive, occasionally one is confronted with places that are so kitsch-ified that they take your breath away. As I write I am on vacation in the hills of Provence, and yesterday I discovered my personal choice for the most kitsch place in the world. It is the Hotel Negresco facing the Mediterranean on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. This old Nice landmark has been recently redone with every square inch covered in gold plate and mirrors. The style is a cross between Versailles and one of Saddam’s palaces and the target market apparently are members of the new ultra-rich Russian kleptocracy that are flooding the Cote d’Azure. It is definitely worth a visit, even if you don’t speak Russian.

What are the implications for designers? I am not saying that as designers we cannot use the past without falling into kitsch. But, there is always that danger, because kitsch is pervasive. In fact, even some early modernist design is in danger of becoming kitsch. Much of the cheaply copied art deco furniture falls into this category. Some objects have become kitsch from over-familiarity. The Mona Lisa certainly has and one could argue that so has Tamara de Lempicka’s green Bugatti painting. It may not be anything intrinsic in the object itself, but its familiarity produces boredom and a stock emotional response. Early modern design, especially art deco, has been so mythologized that it has receded for many into a romanticised golden age of design. Kitsch is also a frame of mind; a suspension of critical aesthetic judgement.

So, where do we go from here? Philippe Starck provides us with one possible answer. He makes the classic post-modern move of embracing kitsch ironically. Quite clearly he is poking fun at kitsch and the sentiment that lies behind it. He shows that he is brave and sophisticated enough to flaut good taste by engaging in expensive jokes. While I applaud his creativity, I think that jokes soon become tiresome. Personally, I wouldn’t want to see the same joke in my living room every day.

A second answer, which is the one I favour, is to draw on traditional forms of design for inspiration, but to modify them so that they are neither sentimental nor mocking. Let me end with two examples from my collection that illustrate what I have in mind. The first is a Louis XVI inspired chair. This type of furniture is potentially a minefield of kitsch, being the most (and the most badly) copied style of furniture in the world. I avoid disaster by either using good antiques or by having pieces skillfully made in one of the top ateliers in Paris and then covered in materials that are undeniably modern. The second example is my Proust table. Here the reference to the past is somewhat less obvious. There is an interwar feel to the piece, but have we seen it before? The answer is, yes and no. Jean-Michel Frank designed a table with four narrow legs in this cut pattern; my table is bigger and bolder, but it acknowledges Frank’s original idea.

The past is always with us and we are forever referencing the work of those who came before us. We can attempt to do this with grace; we can even indulge in postmodern irony, but if we are not very, very careful, we will do nothing more than produce our own version of kitsch.