Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’: how has the reproduction of images changed the development of art? Identify three works of your choice to support your argument.
This essay will start from Walter Benjamin’s consideration about the impact of mechanical reproduction of art as revolutionizing its social function and will describe the noticeable validity of his theory in the contemporary world. By introducing three artworks that belong to different historical periods, namely, the ‘Mechanical Head’ by Raoul Hausmann, ‘Furhead’ by John McHale and ‘Thirty Are Better Than One’ by Andy Warhol, the impact of photography and of the new technologies in contributing to the development of these works will be analysed.
All of the three works represent as a main subject a human head: according to Benjamin’s idea, man’s countenance represented in early photography portraits was the only trace of the “aura” of a piece of art recognizable in the modern era. Benjamin describes the “aura” as the ability of an artwork to evoke a sense of authenticity and unreachability.
However, the three faces represented in these artworks are each one deprived of any identity or representing a mass media icon, explicitly showing how, in the age of mechanical reproduction, even the last sign of cult value of a piece of art is replaced by a pure exhibition value.
Hausmann artwork consists in a carved wooden cranium with no pupils, which, as Jonathan Jones writes in The Guardian, “is given identity only by the objects stuck to it: a tape measure, a wooden ruler, a tin cup, a spectacles case and a piece of metal, which could be a plate plugging the damaged skull of a soldier” (Jones, 2003). This sculpture analyses the problematic of individuality given by the lack of uniqueness in a world of mechanical reproduction, showing how the Dada movement tries to achieve, as Benjamin writes, “a relentless destruction of the aura of their creations” (Benjamin, 1968: 12). The aim of
This essay will start from Walter Benjamin’s consideration about the impact of mechanical reproduction of art as revolutionizing its social function and will describe the noticeable validity of his theory in the contemporary world. By introducing three artworks that belong to different historical periods, namely, the ‘Mechanical Head’ by Raoul Hausmann, ‘Furhead’ by John McHale and ‘Thirty Are Better Than One’ by Andy Warhol, the impact of photography and of the new technologies in contributing to the development of these works will be analysed.
All of the three works represent as a main subject a human head: according to Benjamin’s idea, man’s countenance represented in early photography portraits was the only trace of the “aura” of a piece of art recognizable in the modern era. Benjamin describes the “aura” as the ability of an artwork to evoke a sense of authenticity and unreachability.
However, the three faces represented in these artworks are each one deprived of any identity or representing a mass media icon, explicitly showing how, in the age of mechanical reproduction, even the last sign of cult value of a piece of art is replaced by a pure exhibition value.
Hausmann artwork consists in a carved wooden cranium with no pupils, which, as Jonathan Jones writes in The Guardian, “is given identity only by the objects stuck to it: a tape measure, a wooden ruler, a tin cup, a spectacles case and a piece of metal, which could be a plate plugging the damaged skull of a soldier” (Jones, 2003). This sculpture analyses the problematic of individuality given by the lack of uniqueness in a world of mechanical reproduction, showing how the Dada movement tries to achieve, as Benjamin writes, “a relentless destruction of the aura of their creations” (Benjamin, 1968: 12). The aim of
Bibliography: Benjamin, W., ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in Illuminations (New York, Schochen, 1968) Benjamin, W., ‘The Author as Producer’, New Left Review, Vol. 1, No. 62 (1970). Caygill, H., Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience, (London: Routledge, 1998) Gere C., Art, Time and Technology (Oxford: Berg, 2006). Jones J., ‘The Spirit of Our Time – Mechanical Head, Raoul Hausmann (1919)’, The Guardian, 27 September 2003, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/sep/27/art accessed 26 October 2013. Lovejoy M., ‘Art, Technology and Postmodernism: Paradigms, Parallels and Paradoxes’, Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1990). Mattick P., ‘The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol’, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 24, No. 4 (1998), pp. 965-987 McHale J., The Expendable Reader: Articles on Art, Architecture, Design and Media, (New York: GSAPP Books, 2011). Wolff J., ‘Memoirs and micrologies: Walter Benjamin’s artwork essay reconsidered’, in Laura Marcus and Lynda Nead (eds), The Actuality of Walter Benjamin, (London: Lawrence & Wishart Limited, 1998). Wolin R., Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).