I have started reading 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' by Walter Benjamin. I took these quotes from it:

"To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose 'sense of the universal equality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from unique objects by means of reproduction."

"To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work designed for reproducibility"

Walter Benjamin is saying that changes in the modes of production would change aesthetic values of society. I think this is inherently a bourgeois view. There are many factors external to the artists which affect the aesthetic values of society. Oil paintings are valued more as 'high art' than a pencil drawing because oils are more expensive.

Art galleries have pushed the concept of the 'original' for their own capitalist motives. They can keep the art world elite - they can get more money out of people. They have rubbished the idea of mass produced art as commercial and capitalist, when in fact I think this the most revolutionary stand point.  ¶ 1:17 PM