Now (1) obviously I can't prove wrong what 'you find' in Benjamin. But (2) the second part of your email contains some very questionable propositions.
Take: 'The stylistic changes that have effected art > since the mid-19thcentury can be attributed in large part to artists9 > responding to the growing influence of mechanical reproduction and mass > media.' Which artists are we talking about? I think it is quite possible - even likely - that photography (let's avoid the clumsy 'mechanical reproduction') affected the Salon painters. They were in large measure trying to compete with it - and doing so quite well for a while because they had colour and photography didn't (The cinema killed them off finally) But the idea that photography was somehow a factor for Van Gogh, Cezanne etc seems to me a furphy. I know it is a favorite idea in art history books but it is always just asserted - never demonstrated. I think those painters were responding to much deeper cultural developments than the invention of photography. (I am not going to try to argue that here. But then Benjamin doesn't argue his position either - he just asserts it.) But above all, you - and Benjamin - need to be clear which painters you are talking about. To lump the salon painters in with Cezanne etc would be very odd. There are heaps of other problems in what you say. (eg "Beginning with the premise that the work of art attained its autonomy with art for art sake at that time," "its aura (the mechanisms of its secular autonomy constituted by the 3residual affect of its historical origins as a cult object and fetish" "hreatens to transforms art into a thing that exists only for exhibition." "the contradictorily impulse to realize an art that is both immutable (eternal) and one that is forever changing and political in its aesthetic." ) But that will do me for now. I'm not here to write essays.Maybe I'll come back to those. DA On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 11:23 PM, Saul Ostrow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here prove this wrong > > My interest in Walter Benjamin9s The Work of Art in the Age (Epoch) of its > Technical Reproducibility (1935-36)* is pragmatic. I find its structure and > content to be a mechanism, which supplies a model for focusing on and > rethinking such subjects as art history, the role of the artist as author/ > producer, the nature of cultural production9s varied practices, as well as > the relationship between aesthetics and cultural politics. This text offers > me the means by which to structure these elements into a network in which it > is possible to account for the respective impact of each component on the > identity and the economies of the other9s. This platform offers me a > critical perspective from which the provisional art historical narrative > that claims to reflect Benjamin9s Art Work essay can be analyzed. Such > sociological accounts though formalist in nature takes as their central > argument the prospect that the stylistic changes that have effected art > since the mid-19thcentury can be attributed in large part to artists9 > responding to the growing influence of mechanical reproduction and mass > media. Beginning with the premise that the work of art attained its > autonomy with art for art sake at that time, it then goes on to re-affirm > the view that mechanical reproduction not only threatens this illusionary > autonomy, but actually by negating its aura (the mechanisms of its secular > autonomy constituted by the 3residual affect of its historical origins as a > cult object and fetish) threatens to transforms art into a thing that exists > only for exhibition. This schema, susceptible to the logic of positivism, > Benjamin acknowledges leaves un-resolved the contradictorily impulse to > realize an art that is both immutable (eternal) and one that is forever > changing and political in its aesthetic. > > > > > -- Derek Allan http://www.home.netspeed.com.au/derek.allan/default.htm
