Article:

Über eine materialistische Seite von Camp. Naturgeschichte bei Jack Smith

‹Camp› is a phenomenon that is as fickle as it is undertheorized. Usually loosely associated with and denigrated as a gay aesthetic that borders on kitsch, on closer inspection it turns out to be an object of study that is both fascinating and highly complex in terms of its aesthetic, ethical, and political aspects. When the phenomenon has seriously been discussed at all, it has usually been associated with the critical project of highlighting the historical development of gender identities in the light of a kind of gender performance manifest in camp. This essay will propose a perspective that supplements the critical project of reading history in what is presented as nature. This is not so much about becoming aware of the dimension of history in nature, but of the dimension of nature in history. The camp aesthetics of Jack Smith is a rich source of material in this endeavor. It brings a serious, materialist side of the phenomenon of camp into the field of vision, which repositions the usual theorizing about terms such as irony, parody, and aestheticism.