Do you have a reference for where Benjamin wrote about this? I found this excerpt from "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": "With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products. It is easier to exhibit a portrait bust that can be sent here and there than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple. The same holds for the painting as against the mosaic or fresco that preceded it."
But wasn't sure if this was exactly what you were referencing, or some other piece.
Yes, thats the piece I was referencing. There are some other relevant sections too:
"a situation which Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: “Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into
our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so
we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and
disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.” "
"technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into
situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it
enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a
photograph or a phonograph record. The cathedral leaves its locale to be
received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production, performed in an
auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room"
The whole essay is great, I'd really recommend reading it and Benjamin's other works.
But wasn't sure if this was exactly what you were referencing, or some other piece.