Towards a Reinterpretation of the the Museum without Walls: Photography and the Materiality of the Artwork

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose a contemporary reading of The Museum without Walls (1947, 1951,1965) written by André Malraux. We support an approach that differs from the traditional interpretations this text has had as a precursor of the circulation of the artistic image through digital photography on the Internet. Starting with an analysis of the body of the work of art on Malraux´s text, we propose two hypotheses about his perspective. Firstly, the photographic transformation developed in the reproduction of artworks is inseparable from the radical change that took place in Modern Painting during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Secondly, these modifications were not limited to the problem of image and circulation but involved radical changes in the notions of body and materiality of the artwork.