Although he was writing half a millennium after the Parthenon was built, he touched on the essence of its enduring appeal. Should works of art be repatriated to their countries of origin and is that always the right decision? Vigderman’s approach is informed by Walter Benjamin’s concept of an object’s aura, a property embedded in time and history. Behind the examples in this thoughtful book lies the realization that the relationship between the spectator and art is inevitably complex. After all, we can’t return art or history to a lost past; as the architectural historian Sigfried Giedion observed: “The backward look transforms its object.

Source: New York Times February 20, 2018 09:56 UTC