Relationship between Mechanical Reproduction, Art and Culture

Marxist criticism concerns itself with class differences and the modes of production that produce oppression. Class conflict will be reflected in different forms of art because the marxist school believes that everything in a society is based on the current modes of production. A change to the mode of production will bring change to politics, law, philosophy, religion, and art. Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin are three of the most notable critics of Marxism. They write about the production of cultural subject in capitalist societies, agreeing that reproduction of art has drastically changed due to mechanization. Horkheimer and Adorno’s The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception and Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction are two texts that to depict how technology, the modes of production, have allowed the mechanical reproduction of works of art to change our culture society. Horkheimer and Adorno evolve from the works of Benjamin to to create the idea of the business ideology being formed from this mass production and consumption.

The mode of production that shaped the art and culture of the twentieth century is mechanical reproduction. Horkheimer, Adorno and Benjamin write about how this mode of production shapes the cultural identity of society. Benjamin argues that reproduction devalues art because it no longer has an aura. The aura of an art piece ties it to a specific location and time. He believes that only the original hold a history that cannot be reproduced:

“In even the most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art-its unique existence in a particular place. It is this unique existence-and nothing else-that bears the ...

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...e fulfilled with manufactured goods created by capitalism. This thought can be an extension and progression of Benjamin, who argues that art subjects the working class to conformity because, as consumers, they enjoy simple capitalistic distractions. Though something that is never mentioned by Horkheimer and Adorno is a form of art being taken back from the dominant ideology as a form of protest against the upper class. Benjamin uses the example of Dadaism and a type of “anti-art” movement. He believes that art can cause a shock to the individual that would not be an ideological distraction. Benjamin argues that art does not need to follow an ideological format but certain people, like Dadaism, can create to promote thinking and not passivity. In contrast Horkheimer and Adorno argue that the culture industry creates to feed the masses the ideology of the upper class.