Response to Walter Benjamin: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Benjamin talks of the "liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage." Which is relevant in a land of movie remakes of novels, and other movies, a constant supply of cover songs and reproductions. But the fact is that this old cultural heritage, that is supposedly 'authentic' within it's historical context, is also a liquidation of the images of it's time. Medieval art liquidated the images of Mary and Jesus and told and retold the religious tales and myths of it's time. Greek art reproduced the same images of gods and the mythology of it's time. Art has always been drawing on itself and the art that came before it, it's just had more secrecy in the past to hide it's plagiarism. And authenticity in the concept of a true 'author' with noble intentions is a historical myth. There have been numerous questions as to whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his own works. And famous artists of the past, just like those of the present, such as Michelangelo, were not only bound by the demands of their 'consumers' (the church or royalty) but also used numerous other artists to help them produce work that would only be credited to one person, much like a movie studio.

As new as our state of mass culture art, film and media is, it is essentially the same story with new special effects. We have a tendency to see a picture for it's differences in detail instead of structural similarities. The dialogue we're having now about the dangers of reproduction on art are the same one had centuries ago about the printing press. Humans tend to work cyclically and I think this is a part of art's endless cycle of validity, manipulation, outdatedness and re consumption. In the end, any work of art's meaning and depth are held entirely within the mind of the viewer. You decide whether you think a Picasso painting is more artful than a postcard. Whether a caveman made his art for you to see is irrelevant, it is only your mind that decides whether it is worth looking at now that you've found it.

Benjamin describes how a statue of Greek goddess held different meaning to the Greeks that made it than to those of the Middle Ages, and this idea, that meaning is in the idea of the beholder and not in the piece of art itself, is the same idea that I think makes the question of authenticity pointless.
Art certainly has an aura, such as Vermeer's milkmaid, that is different in person that in replication. But just because the two pictures, the replica and the original, are different doesn't invalidate one or the other, it simply makes two pieces of art based on the same painting. All art is inspired, however distant or closely, by other art.

The ability of reproduction may only help culture and art overall. In the past, supply and demand played an even heavier price on art; if you were not sanctioned by royalty or church, you couldn't produce art. Through a long loosening of those regulations, we've reached a place where almost anyone can produce what he or she feels is art. While this in some way may lead to watering down or confusing of what is and isn't art, that's a completely silly argument. Because if art is whatever we choose to see as art, prom a painting to a toilet to TV show, there is no way to water it down, since it contains no pure form outside of our minds. I Hope that the ability of mass production will only lead to an environment of tremendous choice, where there is something for everyone to find their own beauty in.