{"id":1713,"date":"2021-02-15T15:21:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T13:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2025-02-28T19:08:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:08:44","slug":"ross-shields-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2021\/02\/15\/ross-shields-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross Shields: THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF TRUMP"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the age of mechanical reproducibility, the \u2018aura\u2019 surrounding works of art undergoes a crisis. The contemporary relevance of Walter Benjamin\u2019s thesis\u2014in its societal, aesthetic, and media-theoretical significance\u2014is illustrated by former U.S. president Donald Trump\u2019s purported ownership of Les deux s\u0153urs<\/em> (Two Sisters<\/em>), also known as Sur la terrasse <\/em>(On the Terrace<\/em>), by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Journalist Mark Bowden, who caught a glimpse of the painting when he was invited to Trump\u2019s jet in 1997, describes the event in an article for Vanity Fair<\/em>: \u201cHe showed off the gilded interior of his plane\u2014calling me over to inspect a Renoir on its walls, beckoning me to lean in closely to see \u2026 what? The luminosity of the brush strokes? The masterly use of color? No. The signature. \u2018Worth $10 million,\u2019 he told me.\u201d[1]<\/a> Of course, this is the attitude that one might expect from a real-estate mogul turned art collector (although not from a future president). In ignorance of both form and content\u2014to say nothing of their unity\u2014the painting is reduced to its sheer exchange value, concentrated in the signature guaranteeing its authenticity.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it would be a mistake to divorce in this way Trump\u2019s painting from its aesthetic and social significance. After all, Benjamin\u2019s concept of the aura does not only pertain to a work of art\u2019s authenticity, but also to the artistic technique and social reality manifested in that work. Renoir stood at the cusp of modern painting, using the impressionists\u2019 then-revolutionary technique to idealize a way of life that had been put in question by an increasingly politicized working class. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a painter who could more skillfully invest his subjects with the aura of natural legitimacy that had been \u201cbanished from reality by the deepening degeneration of the imperialist bourgeoisie\u201d\u2014as Benjamin writes in his essay on photography from 1931.[2]<\/a> This is no less true for Les deux s\u0153urs, <\/em>which was painted in 1881, a decade after the confidence of the French bourgeoisie had been shaken by the Paris Commune.<\/span><\/p>\n

Extending Benjamin\u2019s thesis from photography to painting, one could argue that the \u201cluminosity\u201d that Bowden attributes to Renoir\u2019s brush strokes compensates for the contemporaneous disappearance of the aura from bourgeois life. The \u201cpenumbral tone\u201d (\u201cschummeriger Ton\u201d) afforded by his unique style could then be compared to the photographic technique of gum print used to \u201csimulate the aura\u201d (\u201cdie Aura [\u2026] vorzut\u00e4uschen\u201d) that had all but evaporated by the end of the nineteenth century.[3]<\/a> It is safe to say that many of those who malign Renoir\u2019s style (including the half-ironic \u201c@renoir_sucks_at_painting\u201d movement that flared up on Instagram in 2015) are in fact put off by its incongruity in relation to his subject matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, the painting seems strangely at home among what Bowden describes as the \u201cgilded interior\u201d of Trump\u2019s jet. In a second anecdote, also published by Vanity Fair<\/em>, Tim O\u2019Brien uses the same adjective in describing the \u201cgilded frame\u201d of the same painting hanging in the same plane, which is now revealed to be a forgery:<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked him about the painting and Donald said \u201cThat\u2019s an original Renoir.\u201d And I said, \u201cNo its not, Donald.\u201d And he said \u201cThat\u2019s the original. That\u2019s an original Renoir.\u201d I said, \u201cDonald, it\u2019s not. I grew up in Chicago. That Renoir is called \u2018Two Sisters on a Terrace,\u2019 [sic<\/em>] and it\u2019s hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago<\/em>. That\u2019s not an original.\u201d And Trump said, \u201coh, no no no no, it\u2019s an original.\u201d So I dropped it, we moved on with the interview. We get on the plane the next day, and he points to the painting again, and he says, \u201cyou know, that\u2019s an original Renoir,\u201d and I didn\u2019t take him up on it.[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With Trump\u2019s copy, the discrepancy between aesthetic form and social reality that was already latent in the original is reflected onto its material existence. The healthy glow radiated by the painting not only stands in tension with the subject it depicts, but with its very status as a forgery. Trump, representing a new low in the degeneration of the imperialist bourgeoisie, clings to the aura with the mere assertion of authenticity and value: \u201cThat\u2019s an original Renoir\u201d; \u201cWorth $10 million.\u201d The significance of his copy can be compared to the gold-plated buckles of the Boeing 727 where it was exhibited: a superficial display of outmoded privilege in a hypermodern setting. On the other hand, one could argue that the freedom of movement afforded by the painting\u2019s setting compensates for its lack of authenticity. In order to unfold the full import of this freedom, it will be necessary to explicate the media-theoretical aspect of Benjamin\u2019s argument in greater detail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most paintings lack the mobility of Trump\u2019s jet-set forgery. The primary advantage of newer mediums (like film) against older ones (like painting) lies in what Benjamin calls their exhibition value<\/em> (Ausstellungswert<\/em>): unlike a painting, which is first made accessible to a mass audience through technological reproduction, movies are designed to be seen by vast numbers of people simultaneously.[5]<\/a> By contrast, paintings are imbued with a cult value<\/em> (Kultwert<\/em>) that depends on their complex indexical character: \u201cThe here and now of the original underlies the concept of its authenticity, and on the latter in turn is founded the idea of a tradition which has passed the object down as the same, identical thing to the present day.\u201d[6]<\/a> This indexicality can be analyzed into three spatiotemporal moments, one of which is divisible into an infinity of sub-moments. First there is the moment of creation: the painting\u2019s ideal origin in space and time. At the other extreme is the moment of reception, when the original comes into contact with its present audience. Connecting these is tradition, or the unique route of occasions that identifies the original viewed here and now<\/em> to its ideal origin then and there<\/em>.[7]<\/a> Authorized by signature and validated by provenance, tradition comprises a medium of transmission that allows the then-and-there to appear in the here-and-now. Conception, tradition, and reception compress into the spatiotemporal unity that Benjamin calls the aura: \u201cWhat, then, is the aura? A strange tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be\u201d (see fig. 1). [8]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 1. The aura<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Benjamin observes, film lacks even the semblance of an aura. Not only is it impossible to trace a unique route of occasions\u2014a tradition\u2014between the film that is screened to the original print; that print is itself the result of an involved process of editing that defies the very notion of a single origin.[9]<\/a> The situation is different for photographic reproductions of paintings, where the connection between viewing instance and original work is broken, rendering both tradition and creation irrelevant. The here-and-now no longer manifests a then-and-there. And while the distance between the work\u2019s reproduction (the moment of reception) and its historical origin (the moment of creation) is greatly increased, the distance between the original painting and its many reproductions is virtually eliminated: the unique here-and-now is multiplied into an anywhere-and-anytime. I can enjoy Les deux s\u0153urs<\/em> from the comfort of my kitchen table, peruse Renoir\u2019s oeuvre in the reading room of a college library, or access the catalogue of the Art Institute of Chicago from my smartphone on the subway. With its photographic reproduction, the aura surrounding a work of art\u2014defined above as a function of space and time\u2014is attenuated into a mere trace: the \u201cappearance of a nearness, no matter how far removed the thing that left it might be\u201d (see fig. 2)[10]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 2. The trace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, Trump\u2019s Renoir was copied by hand, not by machine. Nevertheless, it is the contemporary ubiquity of mechanical reproductions\u2014having led to the general devaluation of origin, tradition, and aura alike\u2014that makes the assertion of its authenticity possible. In the age of mechanical reproducibility, any convincing forgery bears the same relation to its photographic trace as the original, whose significance is reduced to mere appearance. The fact that a stretch of colored canvas once breathed the air of nineteenth century Paris, before it was sold to an art dealer, before it was sold to an art collector, before it was donated to a museum, is ontologically irrelevant. This metaphysical proposition is reflected in everyday experience. Most people\u2014O\u2019Brien excepted\u2014have never set foot in the Art Institute of Chicago. Most guests on Trump\u2019s personal jet would have recognized Renoir\u2019s style through mechanical reproductions: on the internet, in art-history textbooks, or\u2014perhaps most likely\u2014through the film Am\u00e9lie<\/em> (2001), which prominently features Renoir\u2019s Le D\u00e9jeuner des canotiers <\/em>(Luncheon of the Boating Party<\/em>), a work painted in the same year and on the same terrace of the same restaurant as Les deux s\u0153urs<\/em>.[11]<\/a> If anything, Trump\u2019s copy could be said to rival the original by virtue of its unique setting on a jet, where it could appear, at least potentially, anywhere and at any time. His forgery combines, on a symbolic level, the exhibition value of a mechanical reproduction with the cult value of an original, whose pretended authenticity is grounded not in provenance, but in the repeated assertions of a man whose political career was built on reality television and social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked by the BBC to verify their possession of the original Les deux s\u0153urs<\/em>, the Art Institute of Chicago chose to emphasize the number of times that their version of the truth had been witnessed: \u201cWe\u2019re proud and grateful to be able to share this exceptional work of art with our 1.5 million visitors each year.\u201d[12]<\/a> Only then is mention made of how the museum acquired the painting, as if its provenance were less important than its visibility. As if its cult value had been redefined in terms of its exhibition value. In the age of Trump, the authenticity of the original becomes a function of its views.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ross Shields<\/a> is a research associate at the ZfL, currently working on his project \u201c\u2018Formation is Life.\u00a0Organicism and Aesthetic Modernism<\/a>\u201d<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Mark Bowden, \u201cDonald Trump Really Doesn\u2019t Want Me to Tell You This, But\u2026,\u201d Vanity Fair Hive<\/em><\/a>, 5 Dec. 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Walter Benjamin, \u201cLittle History of Photography\u201d; in: Selected Writings<\/em>, vol. 2.2, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith, trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999), 517; \u201cverdr\u00e4ngt […] durch die zunehmende Entartung des imperialistischen B\u00fcrgertums aus der Wirklichkeit.\u201d Walter Benjamin, \u201cKleine Geschichte der Photographie,\u201d in: Gesammelte Schriften<\/em>, vol. 2.1, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenh\u00e4user (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1980), 377.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid. 517; 377.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Tim O\u2019Brien, \u201cDecoding Trump\u2019s Lies,\u201d Inside the Hive with Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan<\/em>, Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>, 13 Oct. 2017, 17:29-18:58.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> See Walter Benjamin, \u201cThe Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility\u201d (2nd<\/sup> edition); in: Selected Writings<\/em>, vol. 3, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. Edmund Jephcott and Harry Zohn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999), 111; Walter Benjamin, \u201cDas Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit\u201d (2. Fassung); in: Gesammelte Schriften<\/em>, vol. 7 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1991), 365.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid. 103; 352: \u201cDas Hier und Jetzt des Originals macht den Begriff seiner Echtheit aus, und auf deren Grund ihrerseits liegt die Vorstellung einer Tradition, welche dieses Objekt bis auf den heutigen Tag als ein Selbes und Identisches weitergeleitet hat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> I borrow the concept of a route of occasions from Whitehead, whose process philosophy conceives of an enduring object (like a painting) as a connected sequence of transitory occasions in four-dimensional space-time. See Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology<\/em> (corrected edition), ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1985), 80.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Benjamin, \u201cThe Artwork,\u201d op. cit., 104-105; \u201cWas ist eigentlich Aura? Ein sonderbares Gespinst aus Raum und Zeit: einmalige Erscheinung einer Ferne, so nah sie sein mag.\u201d Benjamin, \u201cDas Kunstwerk,\u201d op. cit., 355.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> See Benjamin, \u201cThe Artwork,\u201d op. cit., 110; \u201cDas Kunstwerk,\u201d op. cit. 364.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project<\/em>, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999), M16a,4; translation modified; \u201cDie Spur ist Erscheinung einer N\u00e4he, so fern das sein mag, was sie hinterlie\u00df.\u201d Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk<\/em>; in: Gesammelte Schriften<\/em>, vol. 5.1 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1982), M16a,4.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Note the identical railing depicted in both paintings.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Amanda Hicks, cited in \u201cTrump\u2019s Renoir Painting is Not Real, Chicago Museum Says,\u201d BBC News<\/em><\/a>, 20 Oct. 2017. Compare this figure to the 18 million viewers who tuned in for the first episode of The Apprentice<\/em>. See Laura Bradley, \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s All-Consuming Obsession with TV Ratings: A History,\u201d Vanity Fair HWD<\/em><\/a>,\u00a020 Jan. 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VORGESCHLAGENE ZITIERWEISE: Ross Shields: The Work of Art in the Age of\u00a0 Trump, in: ZfL BLOG, 15.2.2021, [https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2021\/02\/15\/ross-shields-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-trump\/<\/a><\/span>].<\/span>
\n<\/span>DOI: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20210215-01<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n