Topic 4
Authenticity and Reproduction - Walter Benjamin and Andy Warhol
Reproduction Now, art in the age of mechanical reproduction has been around for a very long time. What we are seeing here a very early example of a votive mould that was made to create small clay toys or icons. It is hard to tell exactly what they are, which are made on mass in a workshop format. Each one effectively identical to the last, inexpensive for that reason. The lithographic press here was absolutely formative on the creation of the published illustration in books, also working directly from drawing to print without needing the intermediary stages.
Walter Benjamin In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936, Benjamin states that: • Artefacts have always been reproducible. • T he ‘aura’ is the quality of singularity and uniqueness that create ‘authoritative’ presence in the original. • H ypothesis: With mechanical production, the aura will wither and wane. Detachment undermines tradition. • H ypothesis: Has the ‘aura’ been replaced by the ‘celebrity’ of the original?
The ‘Aura’ Walter Benjamin theorized the concept of the ‘aura’ and described it as the qualities of singularity and uniqueness which produce the ‘authoritative’ presence of the original work of art. He suggested that the ‘aura’ would wither in the age of mechanical reproduction. The ‘aura’ however, has not withered or disappeared as Benjamin suggested.
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
The ‘Aura’ Access and appreciation of the original work of art and its ‘aura’ have succumbed to the economic advantages of digital reproduction. If someone could purchase a poster or booklet, what motivates someone to attend the gallery in which the original work sits? In the age of digital reproduction, the ‘aura’ of a work can be replaced by the temporal aspects of reproductive work, celebrity or cult value. A celebrity component can heighten the value of the work by placing a great demand on the work for a period of time, increasing the commodification and fetishisation of ‘art’. The importance is diminished by the loss of the original work of art, authenticity and ‘aura’.
The ‘Aura’ To destroy an artwork’s ‘aura’ is the mark of a perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things’ has increased to a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much is thinking for perception.
Debbie Hall (1999), On Digital Reproduction “The original work of art, created with body and soul, embodies the essence, inspiration, intelligence and creativity of an individual at that unique point in time. Ideally, it conveys a universal truth that makes one acutely aware of their own identity and purpose.” • It exists in space, it can be owned, it can be accessed. • But can this still be said of dematerialized and digital art forms? • T he digital realm questions “authorship, subjectivity, and uniqueness.” • “ The process of determining who owns video / sound inhibits the creative act and is difficult to determine… where images, sounds and artworks are recombined.” • W e live in an era of soundbites and samples. There’s no time for originals. Vladimir Tretchikoff, Chinese Girl, 1952
Reflective and Transparent media Reflective art is paper based art, where light reflects off the paper to display the visual image. It comprises most printed work. A visual image which light passes through, such as a monitor, is transparent. When an original work of art is created in or translated into a reflective environment (paper), the formal aspects of that environment have a direct impact on how that work is interpreted and perceived. Scale, colour, texture and resolution are the most obvious areas of difference. The scale of a piece may only be indicated by type or a figure relationship. Details and readings that are clearly seen in a painting that is 3’ x 5’ are lost when reproduced 3” x 5”. The variety of materials, colours and sizes available to the artist making an original work of art are almost unlimited. Conversely, the artist in a reflective medium is limited by printing technology to a very narrow range of papers, weights, colours and textures. The range of values and colours that can be reproduced is reduced through the colour separation process. Roy Lichtenstein, As I Open Fire, 1964
Reflective and Transparent media During the reproduction processes, the viewers ability to detect surface texture and poor resolution may be misinterpreted as an element of the original image. Limitations in colour range, scale and resolution in reflective mediums are not always the most suitable for the reproduction of original art. Transparent media has its own unique set of qualities. Jonathan Crary observes that digital imagery can be comprised of visual ‘spaces’ that don’t have any reference to the position of the observer in a ‘real’ optically perceived world.1 The range of colours is limited when compared with the original work, even though a monitor displays colours in RGB which offers a vast increase of colour ranges than a reflective reproduction. Shape and sizes are restricted to shape and quality of the monitor, and surface texture is often lost when compared to the original work.
1
Debbie Hall, “The Original and the Reproduction: Art in the Age of Digital Technology,” Visual Resources, 15 (1999), 269-278.
New media and individuality and originality Individuality and originality may be at risk during the shift to a multimedia environment. Neil postman observes, “tools are not integrated into the culture; they attack the culture. They bid to become the culture.”1 There is no longer any reference to the position of the observer in a ‘real’ world, as digital technologies abstract the experience of viewing a work of art. As we standardise the perception of the viewer, celebrity and cult value may displace the ‘aura’ and the position of the original and originality is at stake.
1
Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 28.
Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl, 1963
New media and individuality and originality Hall offers an example for individuality and originality in the digital landscape – our handwriting. It speaks so much about our individuality and the content we relay. It is interesting then to consider the originality of an email. In the land of email, we all sound alike: everyone writes in system fonts, yet is highly diverse in content. Email can be considered as an aesthetic flatland, informationally dense and visually unimaginative.1 Email is replacing the original handwritten form of communication.
1
Helfand, Jessica, “Electronic Typography,� in Six Essays on Design and New Media (New York: William Drenttel, 1995), p. 18.
Replica The replica here is not trying to reconstruct every possible element. It is reconstructing with diversions, with elements that are deliberately changed, making it into what appears to be solid gold or gold. Enamel casting is a shifting from the original object to its valued perception amongst other things.
Mike Bidlo, Fractured Fountain (Not Duchamp Fountain 1917), 2015
Sherrie Levine, Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp), 1991
Andy Warhol In 1949, after completing his studies in commercial art from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh,Warhol moved to New York, where he quickly earned a reputation as one of the most highly regarded graphic designers in the city. After 1960, he devoted himself exclusively to art and, as a co-founder of Pop Art, became one of the world’s most prominent artists. By legitimizing the silkscreen technique that previously had been employed only for commercial use—and by selecting motifs from areas of consumer society—he pushed and extended the limits of art, design, and commerce. Warhol’s level of technical skill and in-depth knowledge of color is most vividly on display in this exhibition of original silkscreens. He is most recognized for his sensitivity to social trends, subtle political commentary,and ability to stylize everyday objects into masterpieces; but he was also an excellent craftsman. His unusually large formats and special treatments of the surface — diamond dust, relief printing, or fluorescent ink—give this encounter a particularly special experience.
Warhol, fame and mass media When we consider the nature of fame and mass media in Warhol’s work, consider Marilyn Monroe. Consider Warhol’s own fame. Consider his aloof persona in detachment. Warhol’s appropriation of other artists usually relies on the way in which the artist himself was making the work and how subsequent generations perceive them. It is also worth considering what unique problems are offered and what solutions are offered. The art market will always find a way to sell an artwork, as capitalism never dies.
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1963
Warhol, fame and mass media The key element about Warhol’s work is that he starts from a subject which is extremely well known; elements of daily life, popular culture, the elevated celebrity of the magazine world and of course television, news, media, music industries, whatever. There is industry support for the reproduction of a single individual into multiple forms and screens, and the idea of that person more than the actual person themselves. Warhol was quite an experimental printmaker, using absolute slabs of color, blending elements quite carefully with very clear, almost cartoonish differentiations. You may also compare to work with Roy Lichtenstein, who worked particularly with early comic book prints
Bruce McLean, Pose Work for Plinths I, 1971
Warhol’s appropriation When we think of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, we have no trouble visioning the artwork. It is one of the most reproduced artworks of all time, with an identity that has been lost through the popular attention given to the work. In 1963, Warhol employed silkscreening and printing process to appropriate the artwork and create multiple copies. By replicating a reproduction of the famous artwork four times with two different views, Warhol reduces a masterwork epitomising traditional notions of artistic genius and authorship to a pale shadow of its former self. As the artwork has always had that notion of lost identity, the appropriation that Warhol has implemented has almost given the artwork four different kinds of identity.
Andy Warhol, Four Mona Lisa 1966
Warhol’s appropriation The importance of the da Vinci’s Last Supper as a religious artwork is undeniable. When we consider the appropriated piece of work by Warhol, we have to consider if the meanings behind the original artwork are subverted or completely lost. In this instance, as the source material for the artwork was a cheap, mass-produced reproduction of a nineteenth century copy, all the detail that makes the original work a masterpiece, is lost.
Andy Warhol, Sixty Last Suppers, 1987
Warhol’s appropriation In doubling the image on one canvas, Warhol makes the viewer even more immediately aware that the image is a replicate by showing a copy of a copy. Warhol’s works with reproductions of three or more images on one canvas reveal that this copying is potentially infinite, especially when there are dozens of the same image in one space.
Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962
Warhol and the art market The most consequential aspect of Warhol’s art objects that is invariably overlooked by scholars is Warhol’s ability to exploit the art market by creating works containing the same images in both paintings and prints. For these appropriated paintings made between 1963 (Mona Lisa) and 1986 (The Last Supper), Warhol produced hundreds of works. The art market however, regards each one of these paintings as a Warhol ‘original,’ thus the price of each work is commensurable with unique paintings by other artists. The confusion sets in when one considers that Warhol allowed numbered limited edition prints of these same works to be published as well.
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962
Warhol and the art market In reviewing the problem of the relationship between Warhol’s screened prints, paintings, and drawings, one concludes that all of these images are rendered by the same process, but the art market differentiates the value based on whether such an image is reproduced on canvas or paper; published in a portfolio or unpublished; or designated a ‘unique’ work on paper or a unique print proof. These qualities determine whether a particular Warhol work is worth a few thousand dollars or tens of thousands of dollars. Remember that this differentiation in price is usually determined by the relative rarity of the original compared with the multiple.1 1
William V. Ganis, “Andy Warhol’s Iconophilia,” Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies, ed. Reni Celeste, no.3 (2000).
Andy Warhol, Orange Prince, 1984
Fish-printing Japanese gyotaku (‘fish rubbing’) is the unlikely marriage of fish, sumi ink, and washi paper. Once used to record the size of an impressive catch, it has been elevated to a fine art. Contemporary practitioners have supplanted the traditional method with modern acrylics and oil-based inks, as well as the inclusion of pigmentation by colored inks or through digital editing. Dwight Hwang is a Los Angeles-based, Korean-American storyboard artist who trained in gyotaku during a seven year stint in Japan. A self-taught traditionalist in that he almost exclusively creates black-and-white images with water-based sumi, Dwight brings life to lifeless forms through his innovative approach which has produced unique depictions of fish at a three quarter view and from above.
Dwight Hwang, Octopus Print
Topic 4
Workshop
Essay plan (45 mins) We’re going to go through how to best set up your essay plan for assessment 2. You will also have some time to be able to work on the assessment plan during this class.
Reproduction to change meaning (1 hour) Find an image of a common product, advertisement or artwork and import it into image processing software of your choice. Manipulate the image by cropping it, adding text or images to it, or changing its color. iPads will also be available for some of you to use. What kind of statements can you make? How does changing colours, altering the image and expressing different components subvert messages?