This Is Not a Pipe

Download or read book This Is Not a Pipe written by Michel Foucault and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction.