We live surrounded by images. Photographs, screenshots, digital reproductions of masterpieces we’ve never seen in person. In this context, one must ask: what place does the original artwork hold today? What does it lose—or gain—in a world where everything can be duplicated and shared in seconds?
The question isn’t new. Walter Benjamin posed it clearly in the 1930s, speaking of the aura of a work of art: that unique, unrepeatable presence that fades when the work is reproduced en masse. Today, in the digital age, that reflection takes on renewed relevance.
Original and Copy: Opposites or Mirrors?
Modern thought tended to value the original over the copy. But in contemporary art, that distinction has become blurry. Some works are conceived to be replicated, others exist as limited editions signed by the artist, and many installations are reconstructed in different cities without losing their \”essence.\” Even Duchamp’s readymades, over a century ago, already challenged this hierarchy.
As an artist, I’m interested in how a work can retain its power even when reproduced. A good reproduction is never neutral—it selects, interprets, frames. Sometimes it brings the viewer closer. Sometimes, it flattens the experience. The challenge is not to lose depth in the face of easy access.
The Screen as the New Museum
More and more, a viewer’s first contact with a piece of art happens through a screen. Instagram, online catalogs, museum websites. This radically transforms the relationship with art: it becomes more immediate, but also more superficial. We lose scale, texture, time. We gain reach, speed, circulation.
This doesn’t mean the digital experience is fake—just different. In my own online posts, I try to choose carefully what and how I share, knowing that the image doesn’t replace the work, but can be a door to it.
The Body Before the Work
In contrast to reproduction, the direct encounter with an artwork holds a different kind of power. Standing before a painting, a sculpture, an installation involves spatial presence, temporality, and embodiment—elements no screen can fully replicate.
Art, in its most vivid form, engages the body of the viewer: their movement, their pause, their sustained gaze.
That moment of encounter has something ritualistic. Even if you’ve seen the image before, seeing the work in person can provoke new astonishment. I’ve felt it many times—works that did nothing for me in photos moved me deeply in real life. Because there was the weight of pigment, the accident of a stroke, the unexpected scale. Details no reproduction can truly convey.
Toward a More Critical Gaze
Reproduction is not the enemy—but it calls for a more critical attitude.
We must learn to read images in context, to understand what they show and what they conceal. In an age of visual overexposure, looking has become a political act: choosing what to see, how to see, and when to stop.
As an artist, I think not only about how the work is made, but how it circulates. What happens when it leaves the studio and enters the world—into a gallery, a social feed, a private collection. Each format shapes perception. And every perception, in turn, reinterprets the work.
Presence and Persistence
The artwork still holds value in its singularity—but also in its capacity to persist beyond the original. A reproduction can be a gateway or a veil, a mirror or a distortion. It all depends on how attentively we look, in what context, and with what awareness it moves.
In a world where everything is copied, what matters is not just what we see—but how we experience it. And that experience, even if mediated, remains the heart of art.
Explore More
If you’re interested in how artworks transform as they circulate, I invite you to visit my blog at guarcholga.es/blog, where I share essays, processes, and reflections on art, materiality, and contemporary perception.
