Kitsch offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, wihtout sublimation.
Walter BenjaminThe construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.
Walter BenjaminPainting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism.
Walter BenjaminThere is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Walter BenjaminDuring long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanityโs entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well
Walter Benjamin