The Simulated Benjamin: Medieval Remarks on its Actuality

The starting point of Horst Bredekamp's text "The Simulated Benjamin: Medieval Remarks on its Actuality" is Walter Benjamin's celebrated essay "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility." Rejecting as historically unsustainable Benjamin's key argu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Art in translation 2009-07, Vol.1 (2), p.285-301
Main Authors: Bredekamp, Horst, Whyte, Iain Boyd
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
auratic
Baudrillard
Benjamin
chaos theory
Derrida
Hans Morovac
medieval art in the Rhine region
reception of images
relics
reproducibility of art
simulacra
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Summary:The starting point of Horst Bredekamp's text "The Simulated Benjamin: Medieval Remarks on its Actuality" is Walter Benjamin's celebrated essay "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility." Rejecting as historically unsustainable Benjamin's key argument, that the multiple reproduction of an image destroys its aura or ritual power, Bredekamp points to the production around 1400 of hundreds of copies of devotional figures of the Virgin, each of which was invested with magical healing powers. As Bredekamp notes, the healing power of the reliquary was transferable and the same was true of the work of art. Through reproduction, the power of holiness and healing could be transferred. Basing his argument on this insight, Bredekamp then challenges postmodern readings of this text, particularly by Jean Baudrillard.
ISSN:1756-1310
1756-1310
DOI:10.2752/175613109X462717