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Part of the book: The Integrity of the Avant-Garde

Peter Zusi

Visual Culture 2

Legenda

ModernCzechArtopen

Abstract.  The chapter expands the argument of Chapter Seven by contrasting Benjamin’s liquidationist claims about a ‘vanishing of the aura’ in the ‘Work of Art’ essay with his fascinated devotion to ‘historical detritus’ in The Arcades Project. Linking such historical detritus with the sort of ornament and decoration that Teige (following a widespread architectural discourse) derided as historicist baggage to be shed, the chapter asks how one should reconcile these two conflicting dynamics in Benjamin’s thought. The convoluted legacy of Nietzsche and his conception of historicism (explored in Chapter Two) are brought in to argue that the avant-garde rejection of historicism must not be conflated with the rejection of History.

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