Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

Yes, it is similar, but not the same. Kitsch is unconsciously bad art while camp is deliberate bad art. All B class movie, like Klatwa Doliny Wezy or Rocky Horror Picture Show, polish "holy pictures" given by priest can be camp because poses and look of saints - they often have gays appearance. Violetta Villas is camp and Oscar Wilde was too. Camp was used by homosexuals in the West to provoke heterosexuals and as a code communication. All started with Susan Sontag essay "Notes on camp" in 1964. I was wondering, what is the condition of camp in Poland - if any?

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

I meant she was the first one who described it, although the word appeared for the first time in the XVII century and Isherwood also wrote few sentences before her.

Lajkonik in Warsaw? Where?

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

I also did some research about Lajkonik - it is very sad what has happened. Cafe Lajkonik could be camp as a place, where gathered people from outside or mainstream and because of it subversive attitude, so typical for camp. I did not see the drawings, which were on its walls, so I can't say nothing about their campiness.

Sontag got many things right, but many critics wrote that she got it wrong, that her criteria are too broad, that she cut off camp from its gay's roots, she made it apolitical while it was political etc.

Violetta Villas for sure, although this is camp "in the eye of beholder" as I dont think she wants to be seen as a camp artist. Rodowicz is more kitsch in my mind, as there is not so much exclusiveness in her appearance but rather happy-hippie-folk. Villas is glamour.

What about Basilica in Lichen? I personally think that for such phenomena kitsch is not enough term and I would call it camp. Not only because if its excessiveness, seriousness (which fails), gold, marbles and sentiments about the past, but because - it may sounds heretics - it has some connections with Gaudi's works. Gaudi like Bielecka, its architect, was very religious and they both wanted to do something extraordinary (Bielecka had ambition to build a church, which will make Poland an European leader). They both were using colourful glasses and stones and they both were patriots, whatever does it mean, but is also camp.

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]


I think it can be but only when put in a broader context, when you will include all the jokes about the look of lemon squeezer and the scale of the project plus of course the seriousness, but it is typical for Catholic religion that is why it is also called camp (or camp fads).

Regarding Basilica in Lichen - Kobas Laksa did a great joke about it about 3 years ago, changing it into a huge aqua-park.

Could you explain what do you mean by Sontag not being out? That she was in mainstream? She became famous after her essay.

I really regret that I have never been in Lajkonik and did at least few pictures :(

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/140133/h:550
That is all what I have found.

Regarding Sontag, she had husband and a son, then she got in a relationship with Leibovitz although they were living separately. But you actually pointed out at something interesting. David Bergman wrote in his "definition" of camp, that camp can be seen by person from outside of the mainstream. Was Sontag part of mainstream at that time or not? And I am not focusing only on her sexuality.

I was also wondering, do any of Polish artist (gays or not) use camp deliberately, as a code of communication and to play with a norms, especially moral norms?

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

Well, there is Osika, who is using a camp code, but as far as I know he did it unconsciously, Piotr Stasiowski pointed it out. Since the Oscar Wilde times it is well known, that it is the critic's job to add some value to the art and sometimes against the artist's will. Radziszewski could be mentioned, but he is not using any code - he is using his homosexuality openly in his art works, he does not hide anything. And except of his works "Jezu, ufam Tobie", which is camp because of playing with religious kitsch and maybe "Pink Scotch", where he did not mean any camp - there is no camp in his works. But except of that half-examples - I really cannot think of anything else.

Regarding Sontag, she was in mainstream therefore simply she could not see camp, according to the Bergman. But most of the critics and artists who were writing about camp were in mainstream, at Universities, publishing books and articles. Even Warhol, who became mainstreamed, wrote about camp.

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]


Hard to say, especially that camp is a modern sensibility and we should not match modern criteria to the past. He was an aristocrat and his works describe in a humoristic way its sphere, but is it enough? I don't think he was "freak" enough. I would rather call bombastic Mickiewicz campy and all that romanticism, including Goethe constantly in theatrical pain and Friedrich constantly on commentary.

I had to do research about Quentin Crisp, never heard about him before.

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

Oscar Wilde was campy and he loved to provoke until they did not put him to prison. Moe Meyer sees him as a gay martyr.

Yet all examples we have been talking about are not Polish.
Maybe the reason, why gay man does not dress like Felicia or Mitzi from "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" on the street is the Polish homophobic, 90% Catholic society and the Catholic (usually) education and upbringing? But the more homophobic society is, the more gay should provoke it, like it was in the West. Poland should be a perfect place for it.

Robert Rumas, when he was creating his objects connected to kitsch and Catholic religion said that he still feel uncomfortable by doing such works because of his Catholic upbringing. Maybe that is the answer?

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]


There is no need to be campy. You can be homosexual and have nothing to do with camp. Since there is no need for gay people to use camp as a code of communication, camp in this version is dead, at least in the Western World.

I am more interested in the lack of such camp code in Poland.

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]

I dont know why your friend "needed to be campy", maybe he had some psychological or personal reason to act like that, to act in specific way to be accepted or to hide something. But - if he was doing that against himself - I doubt you could call it camp, unless he was very good at pretending.

But camp is not only that pose, do you think that camp is trap in general? For art for example?

Life / The term: "camp aesthetic." Popular in Poland yet? [27]


It depends what you mean by "true art".

I like this anarchist point of view, I also prefer "pure" perception, but unfortunately it is not always possible, as we have been broken by education and books. The real challenge, I think, is to be able to see something without labels while knowing it has labels.