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Walter Benjamin fully captures the radical transformation of the aesthetic experience of some of the avant-garde artists from the beginning of the 1900s – the cornerstones of the aura disappear with the Dadaists. However, Benjamin does not understand that while the aura disappears from the artist’s work, it will later reappear in the artist himself… sliding from the work to the artist. In fact Duchamp, after abandoning painting and the realization of ready made works, dedicates himself to behavioral actions which accentuate the authorship or the artist, and not the work of art. This creates a mysterious and almost sacred atmosphere around the author, similar to the concept of aura. The sliding of the aura from the work to the artist is found in other artists of the 1900s… (from Yves Klein to Piero Manzoni, from Jackson Pollock to Joseph Beuys).

DOI: 10.4000/estetica.1601

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