dbv
the works of
Steve Dubov
Mechanical Reproduction in the Age of the Work of Art
Shrine for Walter Benjamin's:
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Text to the Author:
Walt: To reiterate/reinforce one of the many ideas you incorporated for artworld, this part/piece remains hidden while the obligatory caption is forefront/reversed. Seeing that this object has its emphasis on exhibition, its artvalue is incidental, it is its own ritual; to confound/outrage and yet-also in homage to your life/death which has been transmuted, a quantity into quality.
Art seems to have emerged primarily from unquestionably purposeful cultural practices involving rituals for the transmission of social/political ideas, reinforcing them. The notion that it’s valuable simply for its own sake does not provide a satisfactory explanation for its emergence and continuance, nor (necessarily) can the idea –now prevalent in the anthro/philo/art circle—that it’s a genetic attribute of humankind evolved to promote social cohesion.
In spite of your observations, it now seems even more necessary to generate ‘cult-works’ as the cycle of decay/degeneration has progressed towards oblivion; the political fabric is destroying the gene pool. As no refutation of your seminal ideas is possible, your demise (by the forces you foresaw) underscores your clarity. This then is a small cult monument to an unknowable/unstable future.