The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism

I really enjoyed Crimp's article because I felt it related to earlier readings well.  His writing illuminated Benjamin's ideas about photography for me.  I thought his treatment of Benjamin's idea of the "aura" of a painting was particularly interesting because he complicates the idea of a painting possessing an aura.  He does so by introducing the concept of artists taking a picture of a piece of art and reclaiming the art as their own.  This new piece of art does not possess the same aura, if it possesses on at all, as the original.  This reminded me of the conversation we had earlier in the semester about people taking pictures of their pictures as a sign of their wealth, because they had the means to take multiple pictures.  Although I doubt modern artists take pictures of famous paintings to display their wealth, I am not wholly convinced of the reasoning behind this meta art form.  I thought it was interesting to see the way that the same act can take on different meanings and how this act has transformed.

I also thought Crimp's discussion of presence was very interesting.  His idea that you have to journey to see the real painting particularly caught my attention because it reminded me of another conversation from earlier in the semester where we discussed the importance of visiting a piece of art.  However, I distinctly remember being very disappointed after seeing the Mona Lisa in person, it is so small and there are constantly tourists around the painting so I feel that making the journey might in fact detract from the painting.  Putting in a lot of effort to see a piece of art in person creates a huge build-up of expectations that the actual piece of art likely fails to fulfill.