The political and historical role of the work of art in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

This paper seeks to expose Walter Benjamin's proposal regarding art and its political and historical function, situating it within his general proposal of historical materialism. Benjamin's proposals have begun to take relevance, in these times, by the way in which his reflections manifest the reality of the author's time, in turn, reaches to project itself in ours, despite the considerable changes that apparently have occurred between one and the other. His aesthetic proposal serves as a good guide in the reflection on the role of the work of art within politics and the history of human societies.