Cheap and meaningful; design If you thought kitsch started with the Lava Lamp, think again. Charles Darwent explores one of the more obscure cultural legacies of the Victorians

From: The Independent - London | Date: November 27, 1999| Author: Charles Darwent | Copyright information

Say what you will about Celeste Olalquiaga, the woman certainly knows how to spoil your fun. For all these years you thought your Lava Lamp collection was a witty take on Nineties designer fetishism, that neon-lit aquarium a Post-Modern dig at Wallpaper magazine, but now it turns out you're wrong. According to Olalquiaga's new study of the anthropology of kitsch, Lava Lamps and angel fish are serious stuff: "auratic", "oneistic", even, "paradigmatic". Don't even think about snow spheres.

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