Let me preface this post by saying that I definitely did not fully grasp everything in this week's readings. So if there are any blatant misrepresentations of an author's viewpoint or facts that are just completely incorrect, that's why.
Anyway, what I did take from this week's readings I found to be pretty interesting. I thought that Huyssen's argument about the difference in American avantgarde art as opposed to European avantgarde art was pretty astute. However, I'm not sure I completely agree with his conclusion that such a depoliticized avantgarde brings about an affirmative culture in which the commodity fetish reigns supreme. Especially in pop art, which is his main example of the American avantgarde, I wonder whether or not the commodity is truly being affirmed. The pop art of those such as Andy Warhol seems to me to question the commodity by devaluing the artistic aura (to bring in Benjamin). In works such as his series of Campbell's soup cans, the sense of the artistic commodity (which I think is inherently tied to aura) loses power because not only is the content of the piece highly reproduced in society, but the actual work itself is reproduced multiple times. Even though Warhol doesn't always work in technologically reproducible mediums (photo/film being what Benjamin mentions), he attempts to produce the same effect by relying focusing on what is ubiquitous.
If surrealism seeks to emphasize the commodity fetish (Adorno 89), then what becomes of the relationship between surrealism and movements such as pop art? They would seem to be largely opposed to one another in a basic sense, in terms of aesthetic, but if they are both concerned with the question of the commodity fetish, how do the two interrelate?
I understood Adorno even less than Huyssen, so forgive me for making such a brief reference to his work. Hopefully some of what I wrote made at least some sense.
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