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Kate Campbell

PHIL 247

Professor Eric Jarosinski26 November 2013

The Fetishism of Art in the Age of Film

In his seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,

Walter Benjamin details the development of mechanical methods of artistic reproduction and the

subsequent evolution of art as a whole, specifically the politicization of its social function.

Beginning with the invention of lithography and continuing through the rise of photography and

film, he seeks to examine the role of art in the absence of its ritualistic value. A proponent of

Marxist aesthetic theory, Benjamin draws heavily from the economic writings of Karl Marx;

indeed, several parallels exist between his evaluation of the work of art and Marx's analysis of

the commodity, as outlined in Capital . Perhaps the most salient of these concepts is the fetishism

of art precipitated by increased technological reduction, an idea rooted in Marx's theory of

commodity fetishism.

Marx defines the commodity as an external object that "by its properties satisfies human

wants of some sort or another." It is comprised of two factors: use value, or the object's utility,

and exchange value, or the quantity of other objects that can be traded for it (2-3). Just as Marx

 posits the notion of value as integral in understanding the wealth of capitalist societies, Benjamin

relies upon the idea of value to explain the role of the work of art within a capitalist system.

Artistic production functions in service of two potential characteristics, which Benjamin labels

cult value and exhibition value. He writes that the work of art was originally created in service of

rituals, and it is its historical embeddedness in cult tradition that is the source of its original use

value; meanwhile, its exhibition value is derived from public presentation (256). With the

 promotion of technological reproduction of art, emphasis increasingly shifts onto a work's

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exhibition value, while its cult value is diminished (257). The concept of value espoused by both

Marx and Benjamin can in some ways be understood as analogous, with cult value serving as a

determiner of art's utility and exhibition value a symbolic manifestation of its exchange value,

where the value of a work of art is determined by the ability of the masses to access its

reproductions. This notion of value is equally fundamental in both Marx and Benjamin’s analysis

of how various objects function within a capitalist system.

Benjamin points to the degradation of cult value as a facilitator of art's transformation

into a commodity. As technological reproduction enables the widespread distribution of art

among the masses, the original work is effectively stripped of its necessity as its reproductions

 become increasingly designed for reproducibility. No longer does the work of art exist in service

of ritualistic practices; rather, its value is determined by the exhibition of its reproductions (257).

Benjamin's analysis of the commodification of art aligns heavily with Marx's writings on how a

 product becomes a commodity. Marx states that a product created solely for one's own need has

use value, but fails to be a commodity; in order to become a commodity, the product must have

use value for others, as well (6). Works of art created in service of ritual exist only to satisfy the

needs of a few — certain religious icons are accessible only to priests; paintings on the walls of

caves are meant for spirits rather than men. But technological reproducibility "emancipates the

work of art from its parasitic subservience to ritual," creating a social use value by allowing art

to be accessible to the masses through reproductions that can be exchanged and exhibited (256).

As such, art ceases to exist merely as an object of individual utility, instead evolving into a

commodity.

The heightened accessibility of the work of art invariably results in the fetishism of art as

a commodity. Marx defines commodity fetishism as the process by which the social character of

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 production is perceived not as a relationship between people, but a relationship between objects.

The subjectivity of a commodity's value is believed to be objective and intrinsic to the object

(34). The effect of commodity fetishism is such that the producer's labor is viewed only in terms

of its exchange value, and the individual mechanisms that comprise the creation of a product are

effectively lost. The increased fetishism of art that Benjamin describes is especially evident in

the rise of film. Within the context of his analysis, the screen actor is analogous to the laborer of

Marx's writings. During the filmmaking process, the screen actor is made to perform for a

camera, and is subsequently denied the ability to directly interact with the consumers of his labor

(260). The film industry attempts to compensate for the actor's inherent separation from

consumers by artificially constructing his "personality" outside the studio (261). As a result, the

actor is further removed from those for whom he is performing; this public persona is not an

extension of him, but an instrument of the market.

Film as a technological art form is founded upon the inherent mysticism of its mode of

 production. The mechanical manipulation of film is impossible for the consumer to perceive,

given the camera's ability to penetrate reality with an unprecedented depth (263). Though

cinematic reality is merely a fabrication, the collection of disjointed shots into a continuous

sequence, the illusion created by its production causes audiences to believe that what they

experience is an unadulterated extension of the real world. No longer is the commodity (in this

case, the film) seen as a product of social relations between various producers (actors, camera

crew, editors, et cetera), but a natural product possessing its own metaphysical autonomy. Like

Marx describes, the subjectivity of film is believed to be objective, and its value as a collection

of social relationships is reduced merely to its exhibition value.

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Though Benjamin's analysis of the work of art, particularly the fetishism enabled by

technological reproducibility, closely aligns with the concept of the commodity espoused in

Marx's Capital , there exists a fundamental difference in how each approaches the nature of these

topics. Given art's status as a quasi-commodity — that is, an object not explicitly produced for the

market, with a value not based in its cost — it would be improbable for Benjamin and Marx to

follow the same line of reasoning in constructing their analyses. Benjamin posits art as a mystical

object, stemming from its original creation in service of ritual. He therefore frames art as

inherently predisposed to fetishism — after all, is the concept of the "aura" not a form of fetishism

in itself? In his description of the aura, Benjamin states that art's authenticity is determined by its

existence within time and space; in other words, its value is intrinsic and not a result of human

labor (253). Indeed, he clarifies the concept of the aura in naturalistic terms, evoking the image

of mountains on the horizon as "a unique apparition of distance" (255). In his analysis, the

fetishization of art occurs even before its transformation into a commodity; the increased

accessibility granted by technological reproduction merely facilitates fetishism on a grander

scale. Conversely, Marx believes that commodity fetishism arises not from the existence of the

object itself, but in its relationship with the consumer. It is apparent that art is predisposed to

fetishism, whereas the commodity becomes fetishized as a result of circumstance. This

difference in the nature of fetishism characterizes the disparity between the analyses of Marx and

Benjamin.

Through his analysis of the rise of technological methods of artistic reproduction, Walter

Benjamin aims to elucidate the increased commodification of the work of art that results from

the degradation of its ritualistic value. Specifically, he describes how the invention of film

inevitably leads to a fetishism that deemphasizes the social relationships in artistic production in

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favor of art's exhibition value. Though Benjamin finds the foundation of his analysis in Marx's

Capital , there exists a fundamental disparity between the two in their treatment of the origins of

fetishism. This difference indicates that the nature of art as a quasi-commodity founded in cult

tradition ultimately prevents it from being evaluated within the same context as the commodities

Marx describes.