Week 3: Aura

     

    Walter Benjamin talks about art reproduction and how it impacts the actual meaning of the original art piece. I think art reproduction can be negative and can also be beneficial sometimes. Say there is art work from history incorrectly depicting a historical event, which there is a lot of. Specifically Native American artists have done this a lot with art. Art about native Americans when settlers first came to America is depicted from a white colonizers point a view. A lot of the paintings and portraits from that time are inaccurate and untruthful. Many Native American artists today have reproduced those inaccurate images of their ancestors and made it their own or made it more "accurate". My favorite example of this is by Wendy Red Star. Almost all her artwork mocks the original idea of native Americans and the notion that white settlers came and were peaceful, her art also has a modern twist. The collection she made that is the best example of a successful reproduction of art is her 1880 Crow Peace Delegation collection

    This is a piece from that collection by Wendy Red Star. She takes red pen ink and marks all over these portraits of Native Americans. A lot of these portraits of these native Americans were completely staged and setup. The photographer would tell them to put a certain jacket or hat on or add more feathers, things like that. So these portraits are a completely false narrative of how Native Americans, acted and dressed and looked. Artworks like these are the reason that I think art reproduction can be really important and valuable. I also think the aura of this artwork completely changes once you know the backstory and also the backstory to the reproduction of this portrait.