Entry Seven: The Production of Space - Henri Lefebvre

I found this text the most difficult to tackle and was so relieved to be reassured in the following class discussion that I was not alone in thinking that it was a difficult one to get your teeth into, a lot of rereading went on here!

Henri Lefebvre was a French Marxist philosopher and socialist. His work spanned over sixty years and he wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He died in 1991, aged 90 years old.

Lefebvre takes on what has been described as 'word interrogation' in the chapter 'Social Space' from the book 'The Production of Space'. He talks about the differences between the words 'work' and 'product' are spoken about in this section and the concept of 'the production of space' where the word production has been a word were the meaning has been gradually lost over time.
The description of the product is something that is easily replaceable through replication whereas a work is something that is unique and therefore, irreplaceable.

When talking about 'Art' he describes how producing artworks with the intention of being sold, exchanged and so on, in fact takes away from the artwork and makes it instead a product. I think this is definitely the case when creating artwork for the subject 'Art & Design' at GCSE and A-Level stages, when producing artwork with the intention of fulfilling specific criteria to get me into the next stage of education. 'Works' should be created out of the beauty of creating a 'work', out of love and admiration of a type of craftwork, it is not something which can be mass produced.
This is just one first look of this text, it is a meaty text which I'm sure needs to be revisited many a time and I'm sure I will revisit this reading in the future.