Blog 6: Craig Owens- "Allan McColloum: Repetition and Difference".

Owens, Craig. Bryson, Scott, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman and Jane Weinstock. Eds. “Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference”. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. Oxford: University of California Press, 1992: 117 – 121.

Clive Owens was an American art critic who was the editor for Art in America and wrote for a number of journals on diverse topics. In his reading Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference he suggests that serial production results in the death of difference.

Mark Jeffery writes

"Death is constitutive of the symbolic order, because the symbol, by standing in the place of the thing which it symbolizes, is equivalent to the death of the thing: the symbol is the murder of the thing." (Jeffery 2006: 64)

Once the object, or thing is symbolized or turned into a sign the originality of the object is lost. This idea reminds me of Walter Benjamin’s writing The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he suggests that when an art object is reproduced, the original essence of the object is lost. “One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” (Benjamin 1936: 4) The reproduction is like a sign of the first object- it stands for or represents it. Majlinda explained that she thought the original aura of the object died when it was reproduced. We consume the copied object and have no idea of the original- we consume the sign of the original.

This seems to be what Owens is saying when he talks about the serial object standing for or representing (as a sign of) difference. Owens explains that while mass production eliminates difference through standardization, serial production “reintroduces a limited gamut of differences into the mass-produced object.” (Owens 1992:119) For example in our reading group we used the example of iPod, they are produced in different colours, with different features and the consumer chooses the iPod for way it can symbolize or suit the consumers individuality. The iPod becomes a symbol of difference and in this way serial production limits difference itself. “Consequently, what we consume is the object not in its materiality, but in its difference- the object as sign. This, difference itself becomes apparent: to carefully engineer and control the production of difference in our society.” (Owens 1992: 119)

I think Owens suggests that in McCollum serially reproducing and repeating artworks, he is making us aware of our culture, “a culture in which difference is “artificially re-created by means of the repetition of quasi-identical objects” (Attali)” (Owens 199: 120), a culture that is concerned with the consumption of signs. He creates objects that are almost identical to each other (which he names surrogates), and sells them as artworks. One then buys the works for the fact that they are different, at the same time turning difference into the very thing they consume. At the end of the day however, the artworks are not different they are repetitions- there is no original- it is dead.

"For although it was possible to view each work as a mirror reflecting all the others, at the same time it was merely a reflection of all the others." (Owens, 1992:118)


References:

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, 1936. Marxist Internet Archive. 2007: 1-17. 7th June, 2008. www.marxist.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.html

Jeffrey, Mark. “The Real and Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel”. Journal for Lacanian Studies. 4(1), 2006: 50 – 75.

Owens, Craig. Bryson, Scott, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman and Jane Weinstock. Eds. “Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference”. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. Oxford: University of California Press, 1992: 117 – 121.