An inflatable replica of Jeff Koons’s Rabbit was part of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 2008.
Continuing its exploration of Tom Holert’s “politics of shine,” the January issue of e-flux journal includes a piece by Sven Lütticken entitled “Shine and Schein.” In the piece, Lütticken examines the “production of shine” within the culture industry:
In his early essay on Wagner, written during the Nazi period, Adorno characterized Wagner’s music theatre as “phantasmagoric” precisely because of its basis in commodity fetishism. In trying to create a seamless illusion and a dream-like atmosphere, Wagner prefigured later, more technologically advanced manifestations of the culture industry, while his tableaux on stage recalled contemporaneous displays of consumer goods. In the phantasmagoria, “wird der ästhetische Schein vom Charakter der Ware ergriffen.” Wagner’s operas are dependent on the concealment of labor, a prerequisite of commodity fetishism.
Read the essay here.