I hate to be a stickler but the title of Benjamin's essay is , "The
Work of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction."
In the essay Benjamin talks about the "aura" of the artwork. This
aura is a vague idea. Benjamin's discussion within the art world
continues to this day. What gives value to any work of art? What is
it's meaning. Anyway, his position was that the unique art work was
subsumed by mass production and distribution. A sort of
democratization of the art experience. Duchamp continued the
discussion with his use of mass produced objects, the "readymades"
but he just the opposite he created an aura around a common object
that had none. The dynamic in the art world is always towards the
reification of an object. The 1980's brought another attack via
appropriation. Sherrie Levine's re-photographing of Walker Evan's
photos is the famous example. In present there is a battle raging
around intellectual property and copyright. The possession of a
unique artwork then has not withered away as Benjamin predicted.
I see no connection whatsoever to any sort of millenial
transformations in Benjamin's original essay. Indeed, I believe he
was trying to debunk that sort of magic thinking as being dangerous.
On Oct 31, 2006, at 9:32 PM, sergio basbaum wrote:
he work of art in the age
of its technological reproducibility"