FAUST IRRGARTEN
About
"Faustival and Walter Benjamin" The images of the gigantic installation "Faustival", by Brazilian artist Marcos Saboya, based on Goethe's Faust and to be presented in Berlin, are a perfect illustration of Walter Benjamin's idea developed in his essay " The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction ". Nevertheless, Saboya's, conceptual work, goes beyond Benjamin. By juxtaposing images from so many original works of art in different media, the Brazilian artist does not, as Benjamin feared, suppress the "auras" of these originals, but rather condensates them into a thick broth of new aesthetic meanings. By doing this, in a sense he updates Benjamin's discourse to the 21st century, where more advanced means for the reproduction of art works make it possible to CREATE a NEW work of art, giving rise to an entirely new aesthetic experience, even though built from fragments of the original sources. Saboya has accomplished the feat of appropriating the original contents bestowing on them his own individual "aura". Smile, Benjamin: the work of art, today, is both itself and "other". Silvana Nassar Philosopher, University of São Paulo, Brazil. https://www.facebook.com/faustival/
