“This is not an art”: Michel Foucault and new edges of semantics in art

Abstract

The paper deals with the issue of references between signifier and signified in the image of the art’s object. The analysis is based on the replication of two works by M. Foucault dedicated to painting: “This is Not a Pipe” and “Painting by Manet”.
It is demonstrated that M. Foucault’s critical methodology contains elements of a phenomenological study (“phenomenological archeology”), since the criticism is directed not only at the object itself, but includes the author and the viewer (audience) in the given context forminga diversity meanings and structural connections caused by the intersubjectivity.
The author notes features of the M. Foucault’s method: a special interpretation for the correlation of depicted objects and text, images, forms, text and context, text and an image of the portrayed. In the artworks of E. Manet and R. Magritte M. Foucault seeks to unravel the possible utterance, therefore it makes sense to talk about the special aesthetic semantics in hisapproach. The question of applying this phenomenological (semiotic) aesthetic criticism towards subjects of the oriental art is also discussed in the paper.