Beyond the Object: Materiality, Immateriality, and the Evolving Aura of Art
- Dimitra Gkoutzou
- Apr 9
- 3 min read
Many artists nowadays when creating art follow some particular steps that are learnt through their artistic process. When interpreting processes their work is usually divided as physical or immaterial. Physical works are the ones that the physicality of their work exceeds the art’s meaning. On the other side, immaterial approaches find this physicality as less important and all the meaning is communicated through symbols.But why is it important? The distinction between physicality and immateriality in art is important because it shapes how artists create, how audiences engage, and how meaning is communicated through visual language. Particularly it unveils the artist’s creative decision-making whether is is more tied to the physical properties of the artwork eg. surface, weight, paint and texture or more focused on ideas, symbols, ideas and narratives.
For example, artists like Pollock, Burri promoted a more tactile and material-based physicality, so that the medium used becomes the statement itself. Especially Alberto Burri's burnt plastic and burlap paintings that turn destruction into artistic statements or Pollock dripping paintings that movement becomes the most important element to look at.
In contrast, Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp surpassed materiality where the physical object was the veil of the concept. In that sense the concept was the primary framework. For example, photographs such as “Leap into the Void” emphasized ideas over materiality by using performance and peripatetic images in order to question what it means to experience art. Likewise, Duchamp’s “Fountain” served a similar purpose by stripping the authenticity of traditional craftsmanship or visual aesthetics through shifting the focus to the power of language as a transformative-meaning making process.
In more recent decades, these conceptual frameworks have evolved into digital installations such as Jenny Holzer’s LED installations where light and language merge to create colorful and digital statements . Existing in digital and virtual worlds, likewise net art and augmented reality artworks such as Rafaël Rozendaal and Keiichi Matsuda’s artwork, the browser of the website is treated like a canvas where the viewer’s experience colour changes as domain users.In Matsuda’s case though he may question perception and identity though but in his artwork the stark contrast between how we will perceive the material world is apparent as well.
The evolution of conceptual art and more particularly virtual and digital art challenge the traditional idea of the “aura” that Walter Benjamin discussed in his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. The first one, refers to the mass production of art such as photography and ready-made dissolve the aura of the artwork because of the different interpretations, access and detachment of the object’s original framework. The second one, is more complex and could refer to absence of the original aka material object which raises questions about presence/absence, value and ownership. In a way it responds likewise Benjamin’s notion of loss of aura where art becomes political leading to its democratization, accessibility and impact growth.
Yet, if art is everywhere, what gives it depth? What replaces the sacred aura? Many would agree that it is replaced by:
1.The idea itself (as in conceptual art).
2.The interaction and temporality of the experience (e.g., performance, AR).
3.Networked uniqueness, like NFTs which use blockchain to assign value and trace ownership, artificially reintroducing a form of “aura” to the digital world.
4.Or even communal ritual which refers to the shared, global experience of engaging with the same digital artwork across time and space.
To sum up, the choice between material, immaterial or both stylistic choices don’t reflect solely style matters. It is more of a philosophical statement which transforms through cultural and technological shifts. All artists contribute to the interpretive power of art regardless of their means. While the physicality of art may align more with Benjamin’s aura because it involves craftsmanship, not mass production and serves as an imprint of the artist’s soul, immaterial approach could be perceived as a singular object the moment that some artists create the new framework. In that way the immaterial transcends materiality leading to the sacredness found in the moment of creation.
Index:
Aura : term used by Benjamin to define the presence of the original and authentic object.
References:
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
https://www.meetcenter.it/en/keiichi-matsuda-hyper-art/
https://www.miandn.com/exhibitions/alberto-burri
https://www.jackson-pollock.org
https://artmap.com/hauserwirth/exhibition/jenny-holzer-2017
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