Walter Benjamin: Art, Aura and Authenticity | Ceasefire Magazine
Andy McLaverty-Robinsonceasefiremagazine.co.uk
Walter Benjamin: Art, Aura and Authenticity | Ceasefire Magazine
The Cult of Yesterday
Capitalism, Necromancy, and the Dark Side of Nostalgia
River Quintana
Feb 09, 2024
Some of the sources of Pop Art VI, Peter Blake
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Capitalism, it seems, can’t let go of the past. Like a necromancer, it reanimates the corpses of bygone trends, ideologies, and aesthetics, then sells them back to us at a markup. This “capit... See more
Capitalism, Necromancy, and the Dark Side of Nostalgia
River Quintana
Feb 09, 2024
Some of the sources of Pop Art VI, Peter Blake
Subscribe
Capitalism, it seems, can’t let go of the past. Like a necromancer, it reanimates the corpses of bygone trends, ideologies, and aesthetics, then sells them back to us at a markup. This “capit... See more
The Cult of Yesterday
The first thing is, as with the Constable Hayway, when we saw it all alone, that's most often how works of art are reproduced. They're reproduced just by themselves without the frames or the pedestals. The second thing to keep in mind is not perfect. They're just not. You always have to worry about the accuracy of the color, or the clarity of the l
... See moreBut a print of a Vincent van Gogh, no matter how high quality its reproduction, is not the real thing. In Benjamin’s words, the print lacks the original’s “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”; or, as he proceeds to call it, its “aura”.