Blog 8 - Benjamin

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner ed.s, Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001, pp48-70

Who was Walter Benjamin?

Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic. He wrote this essay in 1935, when the Fascists were exploiting mass-produced imagery ( “fascists give (proletarian masses) an expression while preserving poverty”)[1] Benjamin states that the concepts introduced in his writing are useless to the domain of Fascism, which relies on elites, hieratic figures and a strict caste system of culture that excludes the masses from real appropriation.[2]

Aura

Benjamin describes aura as a work of art’s unique physical characteristics giving the object its authority and authenticity; the history and present state of its situation in time and space.[3] Benjamin believes that aura is the result of distance from a work which is created by the viewer’s perception of time and space, and that art-making and viewing in the time before mechanical reproduction was based on a ritualistic tradition in which the viewer’s perception of time and space created cult and exhibition value- the determinants of reception of a work of art.[4] With the advent of mechanical reproduction, Benjamin states that exhibition value supercedes cult value in the reception of art. This leads to a loss of authenticity (aura) and can provide positive benefits of a new kind of engagement and a new democracy of the popular.

“When we begin to confront this text that celebrates the end of aura we find ourselves at every turn entramelled in aura”[5]

I think that the advent of mechanical reproduction has created an environment in painting where ritual is valued even more, because we as painters are faced with the knowledge that we have to give something to the audience that a reproduction would not. In that sense painting has been freed from such a strong desire to depict “reality”, and has also itself incorporated responses to the effects of reproduction.

In Susan Tallman’s essay The New Real, she talks about the ability of extremely high-resolution reproduction to copy original damaged old master paintings. The audience can then view the original in its exact physical likeness, thus experiencing a confusion of object authenticity verses authenticity of experience. [6]The reproductions have the ability to create more of an original experience for the viewer even though they are copies. In this way the experience of aura is preserved even with a reproduction. There is a sense of the ability to preserve or renew that heightens the temporal nature of the original. This move from a reproduction to an original perhaps makes the viewer aware of their own temporality.







[1] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner ed.s, Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001, pp48-70;63
[2] Peim, Nick. "Walter Benjamin in teh Age of Digital Reproduction." Journal of Philosophy of Education 41.3: 363-80. Web. 12 Sept. 2009.
[3] Benjamin;p54
[4] Benjamin;p54
[5] Scheurmann quoted in Ibid. 1993.
[6] Tallman, Susan. "The New Real." Art in America 97.2 (2009): 67-72.