"Today it's raining, so I'll take
my Renoir umbrella . . ."
The place of reproduced art in the social
space.
by Dr. Christine Rioux
Dr. Rioux is a Montreal -based Communications Consultant specialising
in cultural industries. She may be reached at communic@mtl.net
In our society, the original work of art holds a significant place
in the public arena. Have we not created institutions devoted specifically
to its conservation, its protection, its promotion and exhibition? Even
if there exists an art market with people buying pieces for their homes
and offices, the work of art as such has, beyond its economic worth, an
intrinsic cultural value. This can equally be said for works which will
never make it to a museum as for those that will. Some are seminal, others
anecdotal, others again unimportant, but all signify a definite act of
creation taking place in a context.
Each work of art is a creation (good or bad according to prevailing
tastes or the period), done at a particular time and place, or space, all
of which is determinant. Even if at this time, this place, the work of
art is not recognised and legitimated by institutions, it nonetheless remains
the case that its presence bears witness to a creative act, ultimate gesture
of the human intelligence. Perhaps it will remain forever unknown, or,
as in the case of the work of Vincent Van Gogh, go down in history as striking
and valuable. Nonetheless, it is clear that the creation of an original
work of art will always be an event, because of the work's sacredness or
what Walter Benjamin calls its "aura" (1). To destroy
a work of art has always been something serious. One only has to think
of the Cultural Revolution in China and its impact on that country's history.
Even if a work of art is to be found in somebody's house or office, it
is, by its own nature, present in society through the gaze of the spectator
and, above all, by virtue of the possibility of exhibition or resale. By
this very fact, we can regard it as belonging to the collective space.
It is this truth that the Western art market both professes and obscures.
The work of art is unique, it is potentially eternal. Only some will make
a mark on history and become valuable, but one has to be able to guess
which will be remembered and which forgotten. The other side of this economic
logic is never presented. There will always be acts of artistic creation
because the creative act has been present in every civilization and in
all ages.
The reproduction of a work of art is a photocopy of the piece, an image,
which does not enter the same sphere of reference as the work itself. It
has found its place as a complement of the work, as a reference, a "copy".
That is why reproduction is secondary in relation to the work, and so finds
itself in our society eliminated from the public space belonging to the
original. In Canada, the development of the market for reproduced art has
unfolded silently for a little over forty years, without publicity, as
a response to consumer demand. Reproductions of works of art are now to
be found in homes, offices, and businesses, but rarely in public places,
even if hospital maternity wards often have art reproductions on their
walls. For the moment, it is clear that the original is to be found in
the public space and the reproduction in the private.
However, since the first art exhibition catalogue was printed in 1483
(containing a list and images of the relics exhibited annually at Bamberg
Cathedral (2) we have not ceased to reproduce works of art, with
the aim of spreading and making known visual art. Today, with new technological
possibilities of reproduction and the rise of a postmodern sensibility,
our understanding of art is filtered through a multitude of definitional
media. Basing our mode of artistic understanding on the image or the original
in a to and fro of referentiality, we enter the paradigm of the information
society. We discover that the artist, the technique, the subject, the school
and the culture are all of equal value, and this allows us to retrace the
work according to different perspectives, the direct aesthetic experience
thereby becoming just a piece of information added to our broader experience
of the work. The construction of our visual experience by multiple choices
and references serves to restructure our perception of the work. Visiting
a museum today becomes, for many people, increasingly an act of "recognising"
works of art. As emphasized by Baudrillard, the work in itself now lacks
meaning because it is integrated in a context, and it is in the light of
this context that one must learn to decode the meanings we give it.
Le Corbusier created the modern house and the white wall; Duchamp,
the modern art gallery; the reproductions market, the conceptual space
of the "image bank", thereby removing art from the catalogue
and the museum. From this new situation arises the construction of a mode
of categorisation of images which incorporates a popular interpretation
and is added to the traditional interpretation of the history of art, thus
greatly increasing the interpretations of the imaginary museum. In the
public space, private space, virtual space, or imaginary museum - where
is the work of art located?
Note 1 - Benjamin, Walter, &laqno;L'oeuvre d'art à l'époque
de sa reproduction mécanisée», "Écrits
français", présentés et introduits par Jean-Maurice
Monnoyer, avec les témoignages d'Adrienne Monnier, de Gisèle
Freund et de Jean Selz, Gallimard, (1991, pour l'appareil critique, l'introduction
et les notices et 1972, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1989 pour les textes de Walter
Benjamin), 1991.
Note 2 - Mayor, Hyatt, A., "Prints & People a social history
of printed pictures", the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971,
chapter: Art Exhibitions
