Aura in the Age of Aesthetic Rationality: Adorno’s Criticism of Benjamin and the Claim for an “Authentic” Modern Art

Abstract

This essay focuses on particular aspects of Adorno’s criticism of Benjamin’s statements, as they mainly appear in the notorious essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Adorno reconsiders the concept of aura and the relationship between artwork, rationality, technique and technology. In order to explicate the background of his criticism, I explore and reconstruct its relevance to cardinal issues in Aesthetic Theory and to his ideal conception of a critical and “authentic” modern art. My aim is to demonstrate that divergences in the approaches of the two thinkers constitute not merely an ideological controversy, but a systematic art-theoretical differentiation.

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