Marshall raises a good point – what’s the effect of “apartness” from the art world, which is in Kinkade’s case also closeness to the commercial world. Looking at the Rauschenberg image above, it strikes me that it’s no more meaningful than the Kinkade unless I place it within an art-history context and “read” it for its place in that ongoing conversation. In a sense in the art-history context, Kinkade is more substantially oppositional, even as there’s nothing oppositional about him in a shopping-mall-and-church context. But in the way that he highlights that conflict, he has his place in art – in a way similar to self-consciously “kitsch” painter Odd Nerdrum, but Nerdrum remains within the art world, with his ambivalent ironies and anti-modernist approach as well as in where and how he shows.

Art-world artists have been making installation, alternative-space and non-object-based work that critiques the commodity economy and ivory-tower elements of the art gallery and museum for decades (or longer, if you think back to Duchamp). The noticeable thing about that critique is that it is always a partial rebellion, subject in the end to the gallery-world and academia-world set of measures of significance. Kinkade’s hostility to those measures, actually undermines them. There’d be too much sophistry in saying that Kinkade is therefore a topsy-turvy kind of radical – but he does “challenge,” no?

Leslie contends that “decoration never challenges, art often (though not always) does.” Entirely reasonable. Part of the question is whether it is the *challenge* that is important or whether it is the *reward*. We can certainly argue that the rewards earned by working through a challenge are more “valuable” in some way, but that doesn’t deny the value or rewards achieved easily. As measured by Kinkade’s obvious popularity, perhaps, the rewards of his accessible, often-allegorical (speaking of challenging subjects) work are rewarding to his quadrillions of buyers.

There seems to be some complaint about Kinkade that it lacks depth. Is it enough sometimes for something to be beautiful? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then perhaps we can’t immediately condemn Kinkade’s romanticized view of beauty because we don’t like it. Was Bierstadt schlock or merely “romanticized”?

Maybe none of that holds together, but I think there’s probably a case to be made that doesn’t rely on Kinkade’s popularity as a cornerstone of its justification. In the end, Kinkade’s democratization may serve no purpose other than its own, especially since he seems to try to distance himself from the art world. In his mind, maybe that’s what he’s accomplishing: setting up something that IS apart from the art world he doesn’t seem to respect. Is that a good thing? My guess: anyone reading this blog probably doesn’t think it’s a good thing. Maybe we’re right.

Decoration (read: Kinkade) never challenges; art often (though not always) does.

For me, those definitions work as well when I’m looking at a photographer’s portfolio–if the work doesn’t invoke some questions, then to me it just isn’t there yet.

Well, it’s fair to say I don’t expect either of them to actually be dropping comments any time soon.