La nueva era del kitsch : Ensayo sobre la civilización del exceso

Kitsch has changed. What was once considered a style of bad taste—relegated to the realm of decoration and associated with bourgeois aesthetics—has transformed into a global "neo-kitsch" that permeates architecture, leisure, fashion, the entertainment industry, and even digital communication. Its influence has grown to the point of spawning a "luxury kitsch" adopted by major brands and financial elites. Expansive and omnipresent, it is no longer confined to objects or images; instead, it shapes a veritable civilization founded on the logic of excess: the civilization of "too much." Gilles Lipovetsky and Jean Serroy go beyond nostalgic criticism or moralistic judgment, exploring kitsch as a central phenomenon in the anthropology of modernity. They reveal the human need for escapism in a world dominated by the aesthetics of the ephemeral and the allure of seduction. Rather than dismissing it as mere superficial frivolity, they analyze it as a key to interpreting our era and place the issue in its true context. This book does not seek to condemn kitsch but rather to offer a lucid, penetrating reading of modernity—with all its contradictions and excesses—demonstrating that kitsch is not something to be eradicated, but rather something to be understood in all its complexity.