Lecture 6; Walter Benjamin- 'The Work of Art in the Mechnical Reproduction' 1936

Lecture 6- Walter Benjamin ‘The work of Art in the Mechanical Reproduction’ 1936 02/12/11

• The work of Art and the Mechanical Reproduction’ is a 12 page essay.
• Frankfurt School where Benjamin attended associated with radicalism.
• Hitler and the fascist movement emerging with the Nazi regime meant that the school had to relocate to New York.
• Benjamin fled to Spain to escape the regime where he killed himself in 1940 before the Nazis could kill him.

How do dictators come to power? Why can they do such awful things on such as big scale such as mass murder of innocent people?

Marxist.org- papers, essays archive

Guttenberg Press 1440; the first press used to reproduce literature. This had a radical affect as people who had previously not had access to literature now did.

Technological reproduction of Art removes the AURA as Benjamin said.

• Presence
• Authority
• Authenticity

This is what is removed from the artwork as it is reproduced and reproduced.

The culture of the elite is replaced with the culture of the masses. This becomes a threat to high class and high culture.

Example-

'Mona Lisa' by Leonardo Da Vinci

The Mona Lisa is reproduced everywhere. We no longer have to go to the gallery to view this image as it is reproduced and shown in so many books/online/papers etc. Artwork is produced in popular culture and put into different contexts. We see this image on plates, t shirts, mugs, tea towels the list goes on. This is not where it is intend to be viewed or shown, it is supposed to be viewed and read in a gallery setting as a piece of fine art. This reproduction alters the viewing experience and context of the artwork dependent on where we see it. On a t shirt for example the subject and image loses its meaning and value. The power of the work is undermined.

People take photos on their iPhones/digital cameras at the Louvre where the work is displayed. The artwork is so protected by a sheet of glass and a massive open space in front of it you cannot even get close to view it properly, cannot engage with the work and interpret our own meaning. It is there to look at; it is above us, a higher power.

Cult Value

The earliest artworks we know are associated with cult/ritual etc. The work is used to communicate with a higher power such as God; religion is ever present in early artwork. Art had its basis in cult and ritual.

Art galleries are similar to churches and temples in their architecture and the way we are instructed to behave in front of these things that have a ‘higher power’.

How do you evaluate if someone is a genius? Mystical ways of talking about work and people.

Tate Modern

Mark Rothko Mural for End Wall (Untitled) [Seagram Mural] 1959

The Mark Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern the 'Rothko Room' was displayed from September 2008-February 2009. His work was displayed in a room which was 2 degrees cooler than the rest of the gallery. He committed suicide which gives the work a different meaning than it previously may have had, it changes the way people view this exhibition. This circumstance produces people crying and having an emotional reaction in the room. There is an institutional expectation that you should feel this way when the work is viewed. People accept this expectation and feeling and make themselves feel this way when they enter the room.

'Rothko felt a growing personal seclusion, and a sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He feared that people purchased his paintings simply out of fashion, and that the true purpose of his work was not being grasped by collectors, audiences or critics. He wanted his paintings to move beyond abstraction, as well as beyond classical art' 

Artwork changes when removed from the gallery context. We can make our own meaning and representation. There is a shift in power from the institution to the people. Institutions force a way of looking at the art and interpreting it. The development of digital reproduction gives us the power of interpreting and presenting the work in our own way. What does this mean for art? Derailing the way we are supposed to view the work.

Louise Lawler, a photographer who challenges the status of artwork by placing it in a different setting it wouldn’t normally be viewed in.

Culture was in the hands of the ruling class but there has been a shift in power.

 Walker Evans, Hale County (1936)

 Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans (1979)

Sherrie Levine photographs Walker Evans’ work to replicate the photo. Is that her work? Does this create new work?

Mongrel Project; a guy hacked into the Tate website and replaced artworks on the site with images of sores/scars of artists. New technologies enable us to reshape information.

Benjamin says that art is becoming ‘the cult of the beautiful’.

With the rise of photography the form of fine art painting had to change. There was a threat to presentation of the world, interpretation. Photography created a precise image of the world. Painting responds to photography/reproductability. Response is the development of abstract art.

Photography can be printed and reproduced. Sculptures stay in the same place as they were never meant for the masses. New technologies change that.

Benjamin talks about film. The invention of cinema changes viewing experience as a collective viewing experience. We collectively decide the merit of the film. Society decides together if it is good/bad. Art is individually read and reacted to, and individual viewing experience.

A shift from Autocracy to democracy.

Benjamin sees a possibility of collective society and readings. Forming our own culture and identities.

Consume culture- recycle and produce your own reading- culture groups and identities.

Online newspapers enable comments to be left and opinions and collectives to be formed.

PRINTSCREEN OF ONLINE NEWSPAPER.

Internet

• Faucalt on Youtube.
• Yale lectures online; making the elite accessible.

Duhamel; a right wing passing elitist judgement about his negative view on cinema. Insecure about their power being reduced in society by the rise of new cultures and new technologies.

Futurist were Italian right wing artists.