Benjamin points out that although photography by it’s very existence overturned the “judgement-seat” of art which supposedly lead Paul Delaroche to declare the immediate death of painting, theorists of photography for nearly a century have repressed this by trying to make it out as a similar art. Postmodernism is concerned with plurality which photography’s ease of representation makes possible.
Work which demands a spectator for it to work; a kind of performance art. The impression I got is of work being made in which the message rather than the medium is important. Hence, photography becomes a vehicle for something else.
For me, what Benjamin calls the “aura” is the way the original has been made or put together, crafted if you like. In postmodernist art this is not usually noticeable, it is the concept that matters rather than the way that concept has been communicated. Benjamin sees the “aura” in historical terms but in my view, authenticity does not rely on time but the manner a work of art has been created of which the concept is only a part. When Benjamin seems to be nostalgic in his appreciation of early photography which existed before photography became commercialised, I find myself agreeing with him over the quality of the scenes depicted, “the uncontrolled and uncontrollable intrusion of reality”(as Douglas Crimp describes Benjamin’s view), yet also struck by the technical ability of these early pioneers who did not have all the devices available to later photographers. Many of these prints are “one offs” or of strictly limited numbers and cannot be reproduced exactly because the techniques and their equipment no longer exist.
Benjamin did not lament the loss of the aura seeing the photograph as a new objective art form yet these early photographs have now acquired an aura of their own as have later ones. For instance, the platinum-palladium print which was in vogue during the late nineteenth century is said to have a depth of tone that could not be matched by it’s predecessor, silver gelatine. The view I am expressing might be criticised as that of a connoisseur, someone who knows about and appreciates fine printing. However, the print quality is not the only aspect of the photograph worth considering, there is also the record of an unrepeatable moment in time.
In his essay, Crimp focuses on three American artists who use photography. These are Cindy Sherman who photographs herself in an array of different guises, Sherrie Levine who rephotographs classic photographs by well known photographers like Edward Weston and finally, Richard Prince, who rephotographs advertisements such as those showing cowboys used to promote cigarettes. What all these photographers are doing is creating a new body of work out of something pre-existing though with Sherman this is not straightforward while Levine and Prince also have their own distinct approaches.
Examining this approach in light of my own work, I think of my recreations of Magritte paintings. Sometimes these can be exact as possible copies as in The Lovers or sometimes involving Magritte motifs as in the apple through which eyes stare. This is a body of work I might consider as part of the B.A. I am undertaking; The Lovers has in fact been used in one OCA course entitled
Amano Level Three 