The Concept of Reproduction and the Criteria of an Exhibition in Contemporary Arts
The purpose of this article is to delve into the problems of originality of the artwork by examining issues of reproduction within the contemporary art market. In contemporary arts, especially in terms of art production and consumption, we can’t overlook society and its economic structure and its connection with of capitalism. As the purity of art creation has turned into an exchange value, art, especially an object as artwork, has fallen into the status of production in an economic marketing system. Walter Benjamin mainly referred to that point in his thesis Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, which originated the sociology of plastic arts. This thesis, published in 1936, traced how the artistic functions of photograph and movie had been changed through the social development. His main concerns were movie and photograph but what I am concentrating from his point of view, is that even in the field of plastic arts, the manufacture of reproduction has been practiced as a primary method within the social and political contexts and development. Though I am referring to this in the main body of this article, reproduction in contemporary art strongly needs a new definition since it has been spread all over like a newest virus, not only by collector’s personal taste or but also by commercial circulations of these reproductions to the public. This relates to Benjamin’s argument about the value of an exhibition at a museum(Ausstellungswert). Since the function of an artwork has been one of cultural industry, the manufacturing of reproduction raises unexpected problems, such as, the originality of the artwork, the value of an exhibition at a museum, its achievement as documentary and as a territory of art criticism. In this point of view, I want to inquire into the value and criteria of an exhibition in contemporary art through the review of the definitions and the intrinsic attributes of reproduction. Somehow in a broad sense, the reproduction is a product coming out of representation or copy (replica) of an original art work or an model. Therefore, the problems it presents differ from the Simulacre, which is an image without an original one. In terms of the Meanings of reproduction, we can distinguish it as reproductions, copies, and productions. These types of reproductions are not the original artworks reflected by the creative intention of the artists. For example, a publishing company reproduced some of lithographs of Salvador Dali in the 1960s. They are commercial copies in the form of representation or reproduction with no artistic and creative intention of the artist. However, In despite of this theoretical basis, reproductions of the famous artists are still displayed without any verification for of the public’s quest for the artworks. Moreover, many commercial companies that are planning to exhibit art works of the world-famous artists only for their profits keep trying to speak ill of and judging by the law the honest art critics’ articles which discuss the true values of exhibition. If freedom of expression is one of the ideals of democracy, even the judgment of the originality of the artworks should be freely expressed.