Meanwhile, I make photomontages as a tool to contemplate the content of the final works. I am inclined to refer to these photomontages as sketches. What is interesting, though, is that they cannot quite exist as an original, and when grouped with my painting process, I feel this is gravely problematic. These montages have the capability to exist on millions of screens if posted online, or millions of editions as a print, and yet not one of those images is the original.
"An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the "authentic" print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed." -Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
