The Curious Case of Walter Benjamin (or where is art headed in the 21st century?)

Walter Benjamin who was more than a bit curious about the effects of “mechanical reproduction” on the quality of art as the mid-twentieth century approached. One can only imagine what he would have made of digital reproduction.

What will art look like at the end of the 21st century?

Suppositions about the future of art seem to have generally stemmed from presuppositions about the interaction between the present and the shifting nature of art. Walter Benjamin, writing as the world struggled to emerge from the Great Depression could not possibly have known that capitalism would emerge from the worldwide economic wreckage, different, somewhat restrained (at least for a time), but more firmly entrenched in the West than ever before. Similarly, Benjamin could not have imagined the ubiquity of for-profit creative endeavors in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Of course, he could not predict the shift from mechanical reproduction (the great Boogie Man of the art world in the first half of the 20th C) to digital reproduction either. Rather than see this as an abrupt shift, however, it may be more appropriate for one to view these changes as a continuation of the evolution of mass reproduction, and simply put, the eventual dominance of mass produced art, music and film. One is reminded of Clement Greenberg’s concerns about the ascendency of kitsch in the early 20th century. Would the appeasement of the masses dilute “real art” to the point that art was no longer distinguishable from advertising or campaign…