Kitsch and Animals in Art & Design

Recently one of my good friends and local dealer Maurice Beane wrote a blog posting on Claude & Francois-Xavier Lalanne's quirky animal based designs and how they have recently reached record prices at auction.  It started me thinking about design and how sometimes it's the luxurious quirky kitsch pieces which end up being high style. 

When most people think kitsch they think of cheaply made items in bad taste, but there's a thin line that seperates the good from the bad.  This line is dictated by the quality of construction, the ideas behind the design and sometimes a nod to pieces that evoke memories from childhood, or flights of fancy.  I personally love walking this line.  There must be a big demand for such items as the prices can be driven astronomical proportions.  Take for instance Jeff Koons Puppy vase.  When they first came out I almost bought one instead of buying a vespa(which i never used).  Oh the mistakes I've made.  I think the vase was around 1500 bucks, and I was debating buying it.  In 2008 Gagosian Gallery reissued(3,000 more introduced to the market) of the vase for 7,500 dollars.  The Blogger Katiedid  has a super blog posting on the Jeff Koons Puppy vase and she has the same regret for not getting one when they were cheaper.

Anyways these kitschy high style items seem to hold their own in the market.  Recently I've been noticing a lot of Nymphenburg Porcelain showing up in magazines and on blogs everywhere.  I especially like the trophy mounts, rhinos, and the skull.  However as always I wonder about justifying the cost to myself, maybe I'll be able to pick a few up on the secondary market.

The vintage Arthur Court pieces have seemed to gain recent appeal also, the larger scaled pieces and champagne coolers in the shapes of different animals seem to be always hip.  I tend to like the standing rabbit one the best as it's reminescent of Jeff Koon's balloon rabbit sculpture.  We have the following one in our shop, and we usually have other Arthur Court pieces available. 

 However there still  are many italian majolica items which I love almost more than any of these and for the most part they are still affordable and readily available, but people are tending to catch on to them.  I love design and it's interesting looking at design from a dealers point of view.  Many vintage and antique dealers are already buying up the larger high end pieces by contemporary designers such as Michael Aram, and one of my favorites Ted Muehling.  Ted Muehling has also done some design work for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Company, bringing us almost full circle.  Hope you enjoyed my wandering thoughts on kitsch and animals in art and design.  I think I've just scratched the surface on this topic and I'll most likely link back to this in the future.  If anyone else has any comments or would like to add onto this post feel free to comment about it.