Post #380643 by bigbrotiki on Thu, May 15, 2008 10:35 PM

The argument if these Philippine masks or those Bali surfer statues are Tiki is moot in so far as they, sold in Hawaii or not, represent the cheapest, lowest bottom of the aesthetic ladder of mass-produced, generic "primitive" art. They are, to bring up my favorite Paul Theroux quote again, "nameless pieces of hacked wood".

Just because they might be the only thing resembling Tiki available in Tiki-poor areas is no reason to consider them as part of Tiki Style. The art form of Tiki style has brought forth so many unique creative pieces of art in the past, which inspired many books and a whole new generation of Tiki lovers, so that nowadays so many cool new Tiki objects are available, (as this web site demonstrates), it insults the art form to even remotely consider this and other non-descript, cultural context-lacking crap (for lack of a better word) as Tiki.

I realize the above posters are aware of the un-Tikiness of the pieces, just wanted to make it a little clearer. :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-05-15 22:48 ]