Was ist Aura? What is Aura? Walter Benjamin

Handwritten transcription in German and in English translation of Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit) written over an enlargement of a reproduction of a note Benjamin handwrote on a scrap of paper with a S. Pellegrino logo in which he asks Was ist Aura? (What is aura?)

The transcription is written on a collage of papers handmade in Germany, France, and Spain.

(The artist is grateful to the Walter Benjamin Archiv of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin for access to the Walter Benjamin document, Was ist Aura?)

Title: Was ist Aura? (What is Aura?) Walter Benjamin

Size: 44-1/4″ x 25-1/2″ x 2″
Materials: Ink on a thousand small pieces of collaged paper handmade in Germany, France, and Spain
Date: 2012
Photographed by: Thomas Little