I think Benjamin’s arguments were interesting, but I had a few thoughts when it came to his point about the authenticity and value of art.
Personally, I don’t think the concept of authenticity exists, making it impossible to create an argument around it. One can argue that authenticity belongs to the art piece first created in a brand new genre, but what about the following pieces that improve and surpass its predecessors? Art is subjectivity given form, where the artists and audiences perceive and interact based on their experiences and perceptions of the world, thus nobody can truly judge if a certain art piece is authentic or not. Moreover, I strongly disagree with Benjamin’s point about value, as the value of an artwork can’t be quantified using science and reason. A child’s artwork might not be worth anything in an experienced artisan’s eye, but it is very possible that another will find value within.
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Walter Benjamin refers “authenticity” to “aura”, which constitutes the “here and now of the artwork” (p.22), “a strange tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be” (p.23), “its embeddedness in the context of tradition” (p.24). It creates a certain distance between the artwork and its audience more than merely being original. In his view, being authentic is to possess certain significance and attachment to the tradition, and hence his elaboration on “cult value” and “exhibition value” (see p.25).
To put it in context, Benjamin’s attention on the authenticity and value rooted from his (and his school of thought’s) suspicion toward modernization. He argues that “the technological reproducibility of the artwork changes the relation of the masses to art” (p.36) and how the tension between the artwork’s cult and exhibition value might lead capitalism into abolition through two: (1) transformation of quantity into quality which produce “different kind of participation” among the masses (see p.39) and (2) proletarianization or the exploitation of labour (see p.19 and p.41).