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Starbucks R (Not) Us |
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Walter Benjamin, the Marxist pothead (for research purposes he claimed; yeah right - the same claim of many a college student) who wrote Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction disdained the notion of the unique object in art. I supposed this was derived from his socialist outlook; the individual as less important then the greater whole. I won�t attempt to argue philosophy here and will concede that uniqueness, on its own, is no big deal. For example, the second you encounter another human being you are face to face with uniqueness in that no two of us are precisely alike. |
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In Art Land, Duchamp, followed thereafter by many a Pop artist, made a career out of dissing unique art objects in what Jed Perl designates as anti-art. Warhol went further with an interest in mass produced imagery even calling his work space �The Factory� (a notion that could only fascinate someone who has never actually worked in one before). Finally, Keith Haring followed the concept to its logical end by shifting his street-hip art (for the 80�s that is) from the streets into a shop on Lafayette Street. Here was presented for sale what represented an overtly Capitalist version of the �Readymade� - logo art that easily transferred to tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc. The most profound question raised regarding art objects in Haring�s shop was �will that be cash or charge�? |
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