The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes that the mechanical reproduction of a work of art devalues the aura of the artefact's uniqueness as art. During the Nazi régime, Benjamin wrote the essay to produce a theory of art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a mass-culture society; that, in the age of mechanical reproduction, and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics.
The essay was published in three editions: the original German edition, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, in 1935; the French edition, L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée, in 1936; and the revised German edition in 1939, from which derive the contemporary English translations of the essay. The subject and themes of the essay, the aura of an authentic work of art and the aestheticization of politics, have much influenced the fields of art history, architectural theory, cultural studies and media theory.
Summary
The themes of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" are initially presented in Benjamin's quotation from the essay "The Conquest of Ubiquity", by Paul Valéry, to establish how works of art developed in the past are different from contemporary works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to understand a work of art in the modern context.Artistic production
The Preface presents Marxist analyses of the construction of a capitalist society and of the place of art in such a society, in the public sphere and in the private sphere; and explains the socio-economic conditions of society to extrapolate future developments of capitalism, which result in the economic exploitation of the proletariat, and so produce the social conditions that would abolish capitalism. Benjamin establishes that artistic reproduction is not a modern human activity, by reviewing the historical and technological developments of the mechanical means for reproducing a work of art, such as an artist manually copying the work of a master artist; the industrial arts of the foundry and the stamp mill in Ancient Greece; and the modern arts of woodcut relief-printing and engraving, etching, lithography, and photography, which are the industrial techniques that permit greater accuracy through mass production.Authenticity
In the discussion of the aura of authenticity and physical uniqueness, Benjamin said that "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be"; and that the "sphere of authenticity is outside the technical " of the reproduction of artworks. Therefore, the original work of art is an objet d'art independent of the copy; yet, by changing the cultural context of where the art happens to be, the mechanical copy diminishes the aesthetic value of the original work of art. In that way, the aura — the unique aesthetic authority of a work of art — is absent from the mechanically produced copy.Cult value vs exhibition value
Benjamin states that "works of art are received and valued on different planes:.. the cult value... the exhibition value." For cult value, "one may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view." He gives as examples "certain statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain Madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level." The reduction of the cult value of art works increases their fitness and ability to be exhibited to the masses.Mechanical reproduction further separates art from its basis in cult. It takes the object away from a fixed location and makes it available to a wider audience. He argues that with “the photographic image, exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to cult value.” With this newfound emphasis on exhibition value, "the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions". Functions that we assigned to art objects today, such as the artistic function, "later may be recognized as incidental."
Film as a medium, Benjamin says, is not predisposed to the creation of cult value. "The audience’s identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently the audience takes the position of the camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed." "The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention."
Art as politics
The social value of a work of art changes as a society change their value systems; thus the changes in artistic styles and in the cultural tastes of the public follow "the manner in which human sense-perception is organized the medium in which it is accomplished, determined not only by Nature, but by historical circumstances, as well." Despite the socio-cultural effects of mass-produced, reproduction-art upon the aura of the original work of art, Benjamin said that "the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being embedded in the fabric of tradition", which separates the original work of art from the reproduction. That the ritualization of the mechanical reproduction of art also emancipated "the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual", thereby increasing the social-value of exhibiting works of art, which practice progressed from the private sphere of life, the owner's enjoyment of the aesthetics of the artefacts, to the public sphere of life, wherein the public enjoy the same aesthetics in an art gallery.Influence
In the late 20th century, in the television program Ways of Seeing, John Berger parted from and developed the themes of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", to explain the contemporary representations of social class and racial caste inherent to the politics and production of art. That the modern means of artistic production and of artistic reproduction have destroyed the aesthetic, cultural, and political authority of art by its commodification: "For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free", for being commercial products that lack the aura of the original work of art.This essay and Benjamin's Passagenwerk also influenced Marshal McLuhan's studies in media theory.