Art's work: Derrida and Artaud and Atlan

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Abstract

The contention of this chapter is that Derrida s writings about the dessins (drawings) of Artaud and the tableaux (paintings) of Atlan remain trapped within the problems posed by ekphrasis. In addition to any attempt to identify both the place of ekphrasis and its legacy, what also needs to be established, as part of that opening move, is the limit of ekphrasis. Philostratus Imagines provide a way into the question of ekphrasis. As has been intimated, ekphrasis understood in the chapter not only as the equation of the work of art with a form of description that depends upon the literary and the rhetorical, but also we must understand that the equation of art and description entails the privilege of meaning - with the result that work and meaning coincide. Derrida s text is extraordinary. It begins with the dreamer held by a work, held by its trait de couleur
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Companion To Derrida
EditorsZeynep Direk, Leonard Lawlor
Place of PublicationChichester WSX UK
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
Pages391-411
Number of pages21
Edition1
ISBN (Print)9781444332841
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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