User:Dennis van Vreden/annotationWB

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)

Walter Benjamin (1936), a German-Jewish cultural critic who lived from 1892 in Berlin till he committed suicide escaping from the Nazi's in september 1940 in Portbou, makes it very clear in the introduction of this 15 part essay that his theories are in no way applicable to the Fascist sense and states his 'demands are revolutionary for the politics of art'.

He begins by explaining the first becoming of mechanical reproduction like lithography, which allowed for the first everyday life images to be sold on the market, and photography and how this big pictorial documentation changed our perception of art though lacking one significant aspect of it, authenticity, which cannot be reproduced. Later he calls this the 'aura' of the work of art. However the upside of photography was that it is a process reproduction, meaning that it can capture what our eyes cannot see and when photography became more developed changed the perception, because it allowed us to deeply penetrate the subject which created the opportunity for more thorough analysis (even psychoanalysis). Making it more 'magical' than the original and telling us that this is part of being contemporary. Walter then quotes Abel Gance (1927) that if the mass would get contemporary, the work of the old masters is next to be reproduced.

Further explaining the aura of a work of art Walter then gives an example of changing the context of an ancient statue of Venus without losing the aura or it's uniqueness. Comparing the Greeks who honored her statue to the clerics who thought the statue was evil and threatening. Concluding that when a work of art refers to its aura it never loses its ritual function. The complete opposite of the ritual function develops itself into a political function during the Renaissance's l'art pour l'art theology. Where art was made to be reproduced and had no social function.

Splitting up art in two values, the cult value and the exhibition value, Benjamin explains that the cult pieces would seem to remain in their places, perhaps even hidden like holy statues or fresco's. And when old work would be exhibited it could be reviewed as art in a later time by putting the emphasis on the piece and thus giving it new values, mostly with photography this would be an important factor.

Benjamin then introduces the debate about the new upcoming medium film, comparing it to the stage of which the main point he gives an example of how in film you have the possibility to edit different reactions if the actor was delivering non-satisfactory emotions by reshooting the emotion and replacing it with the bad footage. He says that 'art has left the realm of "beautiful semblance" which, so far, had been taken to be the only sphere where art could thrive'.

References

1. Benjamin, W (1969) Illuminations, p. 217-51, New York: Schocken Books

2. Gance, A, (1927) 'Le Temps de l'image est venu' in L'Art cinématographique vol. 2 (pp. 94)

Personal notes

- Walter Benjamin (Berlin, July 15th 1892 - Portbou, September 27th 1940) was a German-Jewish cultural critic

committed suicide escaping from the nazi's

his final documented work was about the Jewish quest for the Messiah, determining when the Messiah would come back into the world, in what exact year.

- I wonder what WB would say about todays mechanical reproductions like film and photography. Would he say that it has grown/evolved, or has it lost it's essential values/functions?

- I think in todays art, artists give the "aura" to their work. Instead of it being an authentic piece by itself, the artists presence and personal touch gives its authenticity. Which make it unique and unreproducable.

- For my self directed project I'd like to think about the value of photography more as Walter described it (even though it's 1936). The exhibition value