Kenneth Frampton—A Commodifying Effect of Modernism on Art

Until recently, the received precepts of modern curatorial practice favored the exclusive use of artificial light in all art galleries. It has perhaps been insufficiently recognized how this encapsulation tends to reduce the artwork to a commodity, since such an environment must conspire to render the work placeless. This is because the local light spectrum is never permitted to play across its surface: here, then, we see how the loss of aura, attributed by Walter Benjamin to the processes of mechanical reproduction, also arises from a relatively static application of universal technology.

Frampton, K. (1983) ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance’ in Foster, H. (ed.), The anti-aesthetic: essays on postmodern culture, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1983, pp. 29–30.

Creative Commons License
Kenneth Frampton—A Commodifying Effect of Modernism on Art by escdotdot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.