Post #440907 by bigbrotiki on Wed, Mar 18, 2009 11:49 AM

This brings up the age old question of: Why is cheap imitation crap from the 50s and 60s cool, when today's is just that --crap!? After all Tiki is largely about fakery, and not about the "natural" and "authentic".
I am am all-out vintage Tiki fan, but I would be cautious with uniformly damning today's Big Lots offerings. For the discerning eye there are always a few --albeit fewer every year-- funny items to be found in there (I actually can't see much in the above lot).

Let's look at some of the vintage Tiki that once was cheap crap:

These two Tikis were mass-produced catalog items, in wood or plaster (which is the equivalent to modern resin statuary nowadays), and are collectable now, because they are from the mid-century Tiki period and pop up in other manifestations:

This thing was largely unloved for a long time, but then some guy photographed it nicely, and presented it in its context of the "Do-it-yourself culture" and put it in his book:

And here is some REAL cheap plastic Tiki stuff:

So what is different?

The problem of much of today's bargain store Tiki stuff is that it is not referencing authentic POLYNESIAN culture and "modern" art like Americans did in the 50s, but it references mid-century Polynesian pop (IF it even does that), and often the product bears no resemblance to any original Oceanic Art anymore --which kills the joke (unless you are amused by how today's Asian manufacturers interpret mid-century American Polynesian pop!)

The degree to which this happens varies, and it is left to everyone's individual taste and ability to differentiate between the good crap and crappy crap of today. One comparison are these windchimes:

While this one is way too Asian in its facial features and too "off" in its horrible colors....

...this one (that hung right next to it) has at least some resemblance to a Tiki, and for folks who cannot find vintage Tiki, I would say it could fly as "Tiki":

Both are cheap imported plastic crap.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-03-18 11:51 ]