Boris Koller on Kitsch, the Art Police, and Art as the New Religion

Boris Koller sat down for an interview with Tuv about the destructive powers that are currently in charge of Western culture and the likely alternatives for how to get out of this nightmare.
00:58 Childhood
02:46 Norwegian landscape painting
05:00 Education in Vienna
15:43 Coming out of the closet
16:36 Political reception of figurative painting
35:59 Bildungsbürger (the cultivated German citizen)
43:53 Art as the new religion, public funding and the Art Police
1:14:41 The Kitsch-king of all times
1:17:34 Remembrance for eternity
Interview conducted by Jan-Ove Tuv.
Filmed and edited by Bork Nerdrum.
Assisted by Sebastian Salvo and Nic Thurman.
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[@sebastianmelmoth685]

It is extremely magnanimous of you to hold these in English. Thank you.

[@charlesfil6019]

another fantastic video, im exited for more in the future!

[@stephenrose1343]

A profound and stimulating discussion. While attending art college in the 80's, I painted my then girlfriend and my Mother . The response from fellow students was one of bewilderment,"Why would you do that?" After seven years of art school, I only started to gain knowledge once I had left. The state is only interested in the utility of art.The paradox of both collective thought and heightened individualism pervades a culture that is keen to reduce the past to a sacred essence, divorced from the prosaic business of making. I think you are doing your best to counter that,by bringing making to the fore.

[@darrendazcox]

I was an art student in the 1980s too, however I was influenced enough (thankfully) to follow the classical tradition and not modern art and have tried to get better and better (with the goal of being able to paint something more epic than a Tiepolo ceiling mural) not stopping for commissions of the typical kind to fund my progress.

[@ozymandiascakehole3586]

great one

[@justinhardegree8584]

Thank you for making this 🖤 i understand kitsch better know.

[@ASMR-miniatures]

Thank you!

[@scrumtoe]

What's the piece of music used for the intros? Great vids, keep them up :)

[@gspurlock1118]

You're right to cut state funding. . .then the artists will need to communicate with people and connect with them. As long as there is state funding, the artists only need to pander to the government, usually at the expense of the people. Art that needs government subsidies fails to communicate to real people.

[@sebastianmelmoth685]

"Real people" don't interest me as an artist. Only special people.

[@covenawhite4855]

I think if Government has standard for beautiful art. Like panting of children and landscape. And inspiration messages you find on posters in office building and elementary schools. Or painting of famous figures in history.

[@kingsleysaxon9710]

The Vandals sacked Rome and destroyed the last of the functioning Classical cultural structures. This again occurred when the same happened to the rebuild of Renaissance cultural structures. The capacity for a person to enter a studio of the Master to learn the craft, to articulate current and historical realities was too egalitarian and earthbound. This was too grubby for the elite in schools of Philosophy who ironically with the Western European upheavals of the Post Romantic period sacked the rights of a man to follow his Will and talent and become an Artist. The Vandals this time were those that once would have guided the march of European Culture up the mountain rather than scattering the talent to the winds. Control and greed was far more important. Today we have "art" which is a lottery draw or a blind man trying to catch a butterfly in a meadow. The anointing of an Artist no longer belongs to the masses through the acknowledgement of beauty but to an elite phantom of pure thought and no substance. Good luck Kitschfolk!

[@kingsleysaxon9710]

​@Indigo Rodent An elite detached set determine who succeeds and who does not. Talent and craftsmanship is irrelevant. The general population will buy and collect whatever they're told.

[@covenawhite4855]

There was art during the middle ages Gothic style churches, gargoyle statues, painting of Jesus and bible scenes, and illuminated manuscripts which were really expensive hand written books with painting, decorated borders and animal skin pages.

[@yutu49]

A minor question: you are so concerned about Nazi! art; yet Soviet/Communist art goes uncommented on: What is so different between Soviet socialist art (Soviet Union, Cuban, Communist China, and N. Korean) and Nazi! art except Hitler!. It's early a rhetorical question; I really do not expect progressives to answer truthfully.

[@petermitchelldayton]

Fun to listen but totally disagree lol