Thursday, June 23, 2011
Your Weekend Reading - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, by Walter Benjamin, is often read in an art context alongside Bauldrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, as it discusses the presence of an art object versus its simulation or likeness. These essays will also lead you to Kandinsky's writings and John Berger's Ways of Seeing, for those of you looking for more summer reading!
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In the second section of the reading, it talks about reproductions of art. I feel that making a reproduction of a work of art is good practice to get a style down and see how that artist painted and eventually develop your own style. On the other hand, making these reproductions does not give the same satisfaction like seeing or having the original right before you.
ReplyDeleteIn section four where it mentions when art loses its authenticity it is reversed from being a ritual to being politics, I found to be interesting. Once an art work loses the originality or can’t be seen anymore it acquires different meanings as is said in text. Art shouldn’t lose its original meaning because there is always a feeling of awe when the original can be seen.
In part nine, I found this quote to be really interesting and true... "The greatest effects are almost always obtained by ‘acting’ as little as possible". In art it's the little 'happy mistakes' that is the greatest effect because you are not trying and forcing things to happen, you are just letting them come on their own.
I never thought of painters and other artists being compared to a surgeon and a magician. I found this analogy really interesting. I was able to form an image in my mind of the analogy. But I wonder, when there is a painting or drawing of something in detail, would the artist become like the surgeon where he or she is penetrating into the depths of the subject?
Leanne
I thought the bit about the differences between the film actor and the stage actor to be an interesting analogy. Benjamin describes how there's a certain disconnect between the actor and the audience due to the absence of the actor himself, and his ability to interact with the audience, as well as the presence of camera angles which force the audience member where to look.
ReplyDeleteBenjamin describes watching a film as more like being a critic.
When I thought about this, first I was trying to figure out, where would visual art be on this scale? When a viewer looks at a painting, is there the same disconnection as in a film? Unless the painter were constantly standing next to his or her painting, I would imagine it must be. However maybe a painting is even broken further down than that. A painting is a still image much how a film is composed of still images. You don't spend as much time on a painting as you would on a film. With a paintings, you spend seconds, maybe minutes at most, staring at one still image. With a film, in order to have even seen it, it requires seeing every single frame, which could take hours. However you only view each frame for a fraction of a second. I just thought that was an interesting relationship.
This may be an unrelated note, but this reading made me think of it. I read that the average painting is viewed for just over 3 seconds. So a painter spends hours and days and weeks, sometimes years on a painting, only for it to be viewed for 3 seconds. That's not a lot of time to get your message across, if there is a message.
-Daniel Edward Gerlach
Its very interesting how it puts both work from ancient Greece and then now the art of acting and performing together because although technolgy has changed greatly between those times they still are very much related because even ind Greece performing art had the same concept that it has today. I also like how he talks about people needing to have the original when yet so many of them are being reproduced. And it is because of photography and the camera that this is possible. Without it reproducing the art would just be as time consuming as making the original. I don't feel though that art looses it value or authonticity by having it be every where because of technology, this is a topic thT is duchesse alot now and to me it gives people a chance to preview the work before they decide that that's what they wanna see.
ReplyDelete- Marino
I wonder a time goes on will sudden and spontaneous enjoyment to see it on the computer or in FLASH will replace an artist. I think that people crave to have anew and different. So even if there are twenty people looking at a repro of Mona Lisa someone will want to see it distorted , changed and altered from the original. I think we as humans want to feel and touch things tactility hold them and not just reproduce them in masses. Even as much as Andy . Wharhol wanted to show how pop junk could be made into art he wanted to alter. I hope what does change is the need to accumulate. To keep and buy junk or _MADE IN CHINA-_ to lose what is created by hand. will the synthetic leave the original alone to breath.
ReplyDeleteAllie PIsack