"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a seminal piece of cultural criticism. While the essay focuses on the effect that technology has had on production and reception of art, it is also in many ways a politically-charged essay that cannot be divorced from the context in which it was written. Benjamin published the essay in 1935, during the height of the Nazi regime in Germany (Benjamin himself had already left Germany three years prior and was residing in Paris with other German-Jewish intellectuals and refugees). As a German-Jewish thinker who had witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler to power, Benjamin's essay is intimately entwined with the political atmosphere of twentieth-century Europe.
Thus, while Benjamin's abrupt argument that art no longer based on ritual "begins to be based on another practice—politics" may seem irrelevant to an essay about technology and reproduction, Benjamin's core argument reflects the political tenor of Europe, and Germany specifically, at the time he was writing (226). Adolf Hitler had already been named Chancellor of Germany in 1932, shortly after which came the Reichstag Fire that allowed Hitler to suspend civil rights in Germany and usher in the full-fledged power of the Nazi regime. Around the same time, the Nazis implemented their persecution of Jews in Germany, which led many to flee for areas like Paris where Benjamin himself was located. In Italy, Benito Mussolini had founded the National Fascist Party and was invading territories during his reign as Prime Minister throughout the 1930s.
Benjamin argues throughout "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" that when art loses its connection to ritual and tradition, it will be co-opted by political actors. Benjamin was the first to argue that a key tenet of fascism is the aestheticizing of politics—that is, the transformation of political discourse into spectacle that often distracted citizens from the fact that they were not being granted any rights or power to effect change. When Benjamin quotes the futurist-fascist poet Marinetti at the end of his essay, he emphasizes how fascist ideology attempts to portray political events as artistic phenomena, most notably the destruction of war as aesthetic practice. Thus, the essay is as much about the rise of fascism in Europe and the dawn of World War II as it is about the shifting perceptions of art in the twentieth century.
