Lecture and Talks
Fireside Chat with Professor Maurizio Peleggi
25 May 2024
Exploring how replication and restoration redefine authenticity in art.
Almost a century ago, art theorist Walter Benjamin proposed that reproduction technologies were bound to destroy the aura of works of art by replicating their presence beyond the original. Today we live in the age of digital replication, but museums, collectors, and viewers still prize original works for being unique creations.
However, art objects made for devotion bypass the distinction between original and copy by holding auras that are reproducible. High-fidelity copies of non-devotional objects—as well as some works of contemporary art—may too be said to restore the aura of the original work when this has suffered damage or destruction.
In this talk, cultural historian Maurizio Peleggi interrogates notions of originals and copies in the form of duplicated and remade artworks. Drawing on his recent research, Peleggi argues that restoration, replication and even forgery may be regarded as means to reinforce, revive, and multiply the aura or power of presence of art objects. Additionally, the original and replica of an artwork may both prove authentic if they meet the expectation of viewers—by performing miraculous feats or stirring up emotional responses.
Speaker
Professor Maurizio Peleggi
National University of Singapore
Editor, Journal of South-East Asian Studies (2010 - 2016)
Maurizio Peleggi is Professor of cultural history at the National University of Singapore, where he has taught since 1998. He has held visiting positions at several American and European universities and served for six years in the acquisitions committee of the Asian Civilisations Museum.
Peleggi has published widely on the cultural history of Thailand, heritage politics, and the anthropology of art, including the books Monastery, Monument, Museum (2017) Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom (2007), and Lords of Things (2002: Thai translation 2023), and articles in (most recently), The British Journal of Aesthetics and RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics. His forthcoming new book is entitled Devotional Conversation: A Theory.
Moderator
Dr Patrick Flores
Professor of Art Studies, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines
Deputy Director, Curatorial and Research, National Gallery Singapore
Patrick Flores is the Director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. He served as curator of Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2022), Artistic Director of Singapore Biennale (2019), and curator of the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2015).
His publications include Raymundo Albano: Texts (2017); Art After War: 1948 - 1969 (The Modern Reader, Philippines, 2015); Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (NUS Museum, Singapore 2008) and Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1999)
Co-presented by
National Gallery Singapore
