Does the dimmed, emptied-out, sandblasted look of Rothko's late work (above) make it more auratic? "Aura," WB says, "comprises the unique manifestation of a distance...the essentially distant is the unapproachable." Even though (or because?) present conditions discourage aura, our desire for it may persist, even grow. Is it possible to desire aura but not the authority that comes with it? It might be fine if a well-worked clay pot has aura, but what if a political dictator exudes it, or moreso uses it as a means of mass coercion? Remember the circumstances under which WB is writing: Is this why WB doesn't outright call for a return of the aura, but instead seems to hold out hope for what he calls "correspondences"? Should we always suspect auratic artworks (like Rothko's) for the authority they exert?
1 comment:
I do think concerns of art and power feed into what Facism was doing at the time that Benjamin was writing. I remember that he attributes to facism, via photography and cinema, the introduction of aesthetics into politics. Technological reproducibility aestheticizes politics by allowing "the mass" to express itself by viewing flattering photographic images of itself at rallies, sporting events, etc. These images confronted their viewers with narcissistic pleasure, instead of the underlying pathologies of facism, and thus politics is mistaken for aesthetics. More specifically, the aspect of the aura that invokes a return gaze could play into this as well, because the mass is looking back at its face and thereby finds a gaze that looks back.
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