Walter Benjamin: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

William Benjamin, a Marxist, German Jew living in France, wrote the essay, A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in 1935, the same year Leni Riefenstahl came out with the Nazi/Hitler movie: A Triumph of the Will. Hitler used photography and film to aestheticize politics and war very much like what Fox news does today. Benjamin’s essay is primarily about the exhibition value and power of mechanically reproduced film and other arts to reach the proletariat or working man, thus making art accessible to people who would otherwise not have access to it. In this essay Benjamin is advocating that mechanical reproduction should also be used as a tool to politicize art as a means of combating aestheticized propaganda.

The “Aura” of a work of art, Benjamin states, is based in its authenticity and uniqueness in time and space. Early art’s original purpose was to be a magical, cult object ritualistically created for the gods and no one else’s eyes, such as in the cave paintings of Lascaux. Its exhibition value was not considered. A piece of art now may have much cult and monetary value but might be tucked away in a vault, and never or rarely exhibited but there may be many copies of this artwork sold in gift shops or garden stores for much less money. The original piece of art still retains its cult value though never seen. With the advent of mechanical reproduction art has become more accessible to many and freed from the ritual that it once depended on to define it thus “…mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual" and also has become more of an available, affordable commodity.

During a period of High Modernism in the 1950’s through the 1970’s painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and De Kooning among others renewed this idea of the art object as a spiritual, universal presence or event often created on the floor with ritualistic movements, such as in Native American sand painting. This Abstract Expressionist art movement that also included lyrical abstractionists, action and color field painters, who epitomized the idea of a subjective art that not only created cult objects but called upon primitive ritual. Many people outside the art world never saw or understood this elitist art.

Below, trailer for Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" and an example of the use of aesthetics to advance the political agenda of Nazi Germany.





Below,The Odessa Steps scene from Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" and an example of the use of film to reach the masses and to make a point about the horrors of war.






The digital world is changing the face of art today. The ability to take an original and be able to save it but rework multiple copies has changed the level of risk involved in creating art and it has also made high quality reproduction possible. Optical and mechanical special effects used in film making are rapidly advancing, as are film and photographic editing tools and graphic design tools.