Distinguishing Between Kitsch and Camp
The words "camp" and "kitsch" are often used interchangeably; both may relate to art, literature, music, or any object that carries an aesthetic value. However, "kitsch" refers specifically to the work itself, whereas "camp" is a mode of performance. Thus, a person may consume kitsch intentionally or unintentionally. Camp, as Susan Sontag observed, is always a way of consuming or performing culture "in quotation marks."
However, Sontag also distinguishes the difference between "naive" and "deliberate" camp. Kitsch, as a form or style, certainly falls under the category "naive camp" as it is unaware that it is tasteless; "deliberate camp," on the other hand, can be seen as a subversive form of kitsch which deliberately exploits the whole notions of what it is to be kitsch. (Sontag, 1964)
Read more about this topic: Camp (style)
Famous quotes containing the words kitsch and/or camp:
“No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“There was a deserted log camp here, apparently used the previous winter, with its “hovel” or barn for cattle.... It was a simple and strong fort erected against the cold, and suggested what valiant trencher work had been done there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)