Racial Kitsch and Black Performance

If kitsch is failed seriousness, as the modernist art critic Clement Greenberg has proposed, then the racist kitsch that we still occasionally encounter in flea markets, on trips abroad, and in galleries and museums of contemporary art might be defined as failed humor (see Figures 1 and 2). Kitsch, according to Greenberg, attempts to say something profound, but can utter only clichés. Its abject failure is an embarrassment. The sub-genre of racist kitsch, which was largely ignored by the modernists, attempts by contrast to say something banal. In its failed effort to move unobtrusively among the objects of our everyday encounter, racist kitsch unwittingly reveals itself to be profoundly laden with meaning. Attempting to remain ephemera at the periphery of our vision, racist kitsch in fact holds our gaze, stops our conversations, and in its demand for attention in spite of itself, is an equal embarrassment. 1