Desi kitsch art back in vogue

Plastic gods that wobble on dashboards, velvet tigers stretched across living room walls, calendar prints with glitter-stamped Gods — the imagery once mocked as “tacky” or “cheap” is strutting back into cultural conversations with unapologetic swagger as “kitsch.”

Kitsch, here, is not just about gaudy colour palettes and bling-gone-wild; it is India’s aesthetic shorthand for aspiration, chaos, and identity. And slowly but surely, the “ugly” is being reclaimed as the country’s most honest art form.

Step into any middle-class Indian household in the ’80s or ’90s, and you were likely to be greeted by a riot of imagery. Gods beamed from framed prints above the TV, plastic flowers bloomed eternally on side tables, and polyester bedsheets shouted geometric patterns at you. The velvet tiger painting — imported from China and Pakistan, but widely circulated in India — became a status symbol, a way of saying, “We may not own a Rembrandt, but we have arrived.”

Haute Kitsch

Luxury fashion houses have caught on to the chaos. Sabyasachi’s gilded maximalism owes as much to truck art as it does to Mughal miniatures. Designers like Manish Arora have long turned fluorescent palettes and candy-wrapper textures into couture statements. Even global brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Moschino have tapped into “camp kitsch” — though in India, the effect feels less camp and more lived reality.

Fashion stylist Kavya Menon points out: “In India, kitsch doesn’t need reinvention. It was always alive on billboards, auto-rickshaws, and temple fairs. What designers are doing now is simply reframing it for the runway.”

That reframing is crucial. A velvet tiger in a drawing room was once ridiculed; the same tiger printed on a ?30,000 handbag suddenly becomes iconic. Kitsch has moved from the bazaar to the boutique, not by changing its language, but by changing its audience.

Trash or Treasure

Kitsch has always thrived in the cracks between need and want, reality and dream. Truck artists in Punjab paint slogans and neon flowers across lorries not because it is practical, but because colour is joy. Calendar art sold outside temples was never meant to be ironic; it was meant to bring divinity home for Rs 10.

For collectors today, these so-called cheap aesthetics are pure gold. Delhi-based kitsch collector Anita Rao says, “Every velvet tiger or plastic Krishna is a time capsule of aspiration. It’s easy to laugh at it now, but back then, this was luxury in reach. That honesty makes it beautiful.”

Cultural Commentary

What makes Indian kitsch powerful is not just its excess, but its sincerity. Unlike Western postmodern irony, where kitsch is often a winking nod to bad taste, India’s kitsch rarely apologises for itself. It revels in its maximalism because subtlety doesn’t always sell here. Truck artist Gurpreet Singh, who has been painting vehicles for 30 years, explains: “Why do people want flowers and gods and film stars on their trucks? Because the road is lonely. Kitsch is like company. It makes you smile.”

This unapologetic joy, this refusal to tone down, is what makes Indian kitsch cultural commentary. It is a protest against minimalism, against the muted palettes of the elite, against the idea that art must be tasteful to be meaningful. Today, pop surrealist painters and digital artists are remixing these images into gallery-worthy work. Plastic gods are being blown up into neon installations; old Bollywood posters are collaged into high fashion campaigns.

The Collector’s Kingdom

The reclaiming of kitsch isn’t just happening in galleries and fashion houses, collectors are scouring flea markets for vintage calendar art and discontinued plastic figurines. Young urban Indians proudly decorate their homes with enamel Bollywood signs, neon religious lights, and upcycled plastic stools that once screamed “cheap.” Mumbai-based Film student Rohan Shetty calls this revival a “cultural detox”: “For too long, Indian aesthetics were filtered through colonial hangovers of refinement. Kitsch reminds us that we’ve always loved loudness, always loved chaos. To reject it was to reject ourselves.” Kitsch, in other words, is no longer an embarrassment but a declaration — an aesthetic shrug that says, “Yes, we like it loud. And so what?”

The ‘Ugly’ Endures

What explains kitsch’s stubborn endurance in India? Part of it is accessibility — it’s cheap, easy to replicate, and endlessly adaptable. But more than that, kitsch endures because it reflects the pulse of the street. While galleries chase exclusivity, kitsch thrives in abundance. It democratizes beauty by refusing to keep it scarce. Anyone can hang a calendar goddess in their kitchen or slap a fluorescent sticker on their scooter.

The irony is that kitsch is no longer considered “ugly.” Its so-called flaws — loud colours, gaudy glitter, chaotic composition — are now seen as its strengths. Perhaps that’s why the velvet tiger is being welcomed back, this time into art galleries instead of smoky living rooms. Also, the reason why young designers are printing gods and cola bottles onto fabrics with the same seriousness as Mughal motifs. In embracing kitsch, India is embracing its contradictions — its desire for divinity and glamour, its flirtation with aspiration and accessibility, its unapologetic love of spectacle. Maybe it’s India itself — loud, chaotic, impossible to ignore, and infinitely fascinating.