Walter Benjamin

WORK OF ART

(1892 – 1940)
PRODUCTION, REPRODUCTION AND
RECEPTION OF THE WORK OF ART

(1935/2008)
 REPRODUCILIBILTY
A work of art has always been reproducible.
Casting - stamping woodcutting - etching - engraving
printing press lithography photography - film

But the technological reproduction of artworks brought

about something entirely new.
 EFFECTS OF MASS REPRODUCTION
• Replication of the exact same copy.

• Highest rate of reproduction & lowest possible

production costs.

• Benjamin: “Technological reproduction can place the

copy of the original in situations which the original
itself cannot attain”. (22)

• Unique existence substituted for mass existence.

• Availability to a broader audience.

• Democratization of artistic production and reception.

 AURA
• Authenticity & uniqueness that characterizes the
original work of art.
• Benjamin: “the here and now of the work of art— its
unique existence in a particular place”. (21)
• Grounded in the material embededness of an original
work of art in history.
 LOSS OF AURA
• Authenticity & uniqueness of the artwork disappears with
the technological reproduction.
• Mass reproduction destroys its mystique, its dependence
on history and tradition, and its unique existence in a
specific time and space.

If we can see the reproduction, why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcFWNiY7ggM should we go and see the original?
 WORK OF ART TODAY
The impact of digital video and sound technologies on the
reproduction and the reception of artwork
- Interactive Van Gogh Alive Exhibit:
The world’s most visited “multi-sensory exhibition”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhUmOixt44
- Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit:
“Painting a completely new way of encountering Art”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4JRRSiHeDg
- Monet's Garden - The Immersive Experience:
”360-degree interactive journey to the work of Monet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfKlvAPhvg
CULT/RITUAL VALUE: Traditional artworks created in
the service of magic and ritual. Intended as
ceremonial, cult objects. The importance of these
artworks lies in their presence and ritual function,
not in their exhibition value.

EXHIBITION VALUE: By liberating the work of art

from the service of magic, ritual or cult,
technological reproduction foregrounded its
exhibition value.
Benjamin: “For the first time in world history, technological
reproducibility emancipates the work of art from its
parasitic subservience to ritual. To an ever-increasing
degree, the work reproduced becomes the reproduction of
a work designed for reproducibility”. (24)

With mass production methods, opportunities for

exhibiting artistic works increase.
Portrait-photography of 19th
century: Last refuge for the
cult value. Serves as a cult of
remembrance of dead or
absent loved ones.

“Selfies” as today’s
photographic self-portraits:
Rather than cult of
remembrance or
commemoration, selfies
mostly acquire exhibition or
display value based on their
spread and distribution in
social networks.
 INDIVIDUAL vs. COLLECTIVE
RECEPTION
• Painting: Demands to be
seen/viewed individually.
Elicits private and individual
reception.

• Film: Enabled art to be

accessible to the public.
Elicits public and simultaneous
collective reception.
Gives audience the chance of
organizing and regulating their
response.
 CONTEMPLATION vs. DISTRACTION

▸ Contemplative mode of viewing: A concentrated

spectator is absorbed by the work of art and
contemplates it. Artwork considered an object of
devotion.

▸ Distracted mode of viewing: The work of art is no

longer contemplated, but received in a distracted
mode. The artwork seen as a means of
entertainment and consumption.
 PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM
• Revolutionary character of photography & film (camera) for changing
human perception and awakening “optical unconscious”:
- Close up, enlargement, high-speed photography, slow motion, etc.
• Benjamin: “With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is
extended. And just as enlargement not merely clarifies what we see indistinctly ‘in any
case,’ but brings to light entirely new structures of matter, slow motion not only reveals
familiar aspects of movements, but discloses quite unknown aspects within them”. (37)
• Benjamin: “This is where the camera comes into play, with all its resources for
swooping and rising, disrupting and isolating, stretching or compressing a sequence,
enlarging or reducing an object. It is through the camera that we first discover the
optical unconscious”. (37)

Eadweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion (1878)

 PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM

Microcosmos (1996): Extreme Closeups of Nature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4yQGPXlOE
 FILM AS ART

• The first art form whose character is entirely

determined by its reproducibility.

• The technological reproduction as an artistic

process in its own right.

• To ask for the “authentic” copy of the film

makes no sense.
 NEW WAYS OF SEEING – CHANGE IN
PERCEPTION
• Technological reproduction of images
(by the recording technologies of
photography and cinema) introduced
new ways of seeing and facilitated
new modes of perception.

• Benjamin: “Just as the entire mode

of existence of human collectives
changes over long historical periods,
so too does their mode of
perception”. (23)

• John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972):

a later adaptation of Benjamin’s
theories.