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Introduction Across his work, Jacques Derrida returns obsessively to the problem of self-representation, the moment when thought, writing, or image turns back upon itself. In Of Grammatology (1967), he dismantled the metaphysical confidence that meaning or identity could ever be fully present, arguing that every act of expression inscribes the trace of absence. Later, in The Truth in Painting (1978) and Mémoires d’aveugle (1990), he extends this logic to the visual arts, showing that the portrait, especially the self-portrait, exposes the impossibility of seeing oneself without blindness. In Otobiographies (1979), he returns to the written form of self-portraiture — autobiography — to interrogate how a name, a life, and a signature are bound to death and repetition. Across these works, Derrida’s persistent question remains: how does one mark the self without losing it? The painter’s cartouche and the philosopher’s signature both name and bury, leaving traces that survive by det...

The Sign in Language and Painting   Introduction Across his writings, Jacques Derrida relentlessly interrogated the metaphysical assumptions that underlie Western thought — the belief that meaning, truth, or being could be present to consciousness in its fullness. This critique begins with language, in the structure of the sign, and extends into the domains of art and perception. The present essay traces this movement from Of Grammatology (1967) to Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines (1990), showing how the logic of the sign and that of the portrait are structurally homologous. Both dismantle the metaphysical dream of presence by revealing that representation — whether linguistic or visual — is always a substitution, a writing of absence. The Metaphysics of the Sign In the chapter “The Signifier and Truth / The Written Being / The Being Written” of Of Grammatology , Derrida reexamines the philosophical heritage of the sign. From Aristotle through Augustine a...

The Deconstruction of Vision. AI image     Introduction: Seeing through the Blind In 1990, Jacques Derrida curated an exhibition at the Louvre, Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines , combining self-portraits with images of blindness to challenge conventional distinctions between seeing and not-seeing, presence and absence. The self-portrait, emblematic of self-knowledge and self-revelation, is juxtaposed with figures who cannot see, provoking reflection on the limits of representation. This tension—between visibility and invisibility—forms the axis of Derrida’s inquiry. Derrida’s text, inscribed on the walls and reproduced in the catalogue, weaves together themes of blindness, memory, and self-portraiture, positioning lack of vision not as a deficit but as a unique modality of insight. Through the inclusion of figures such as Homer, Borges, and Joyce, the exhibition illustrates how literary and artistic creation can emerge from worlds inaccessible to the eye...

Tâche. AI image Introduction In 1990, Jacques Derrida was invited by the Louvre to curate an exhibition as part of its Parti pris series, an initiative that paired thinkers from other fields with the museum’s vast archives. Derrida’s contribution, Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines ( Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins ), explored themes of sight, self-portraiture, and blindness. The accompanying text, printed on the gallery walls, transformed the exhibition into a hybrid space where word and image intertwined. The project was neither purely philosophical nor strictly artistic, but rather a meditation on how the visible and the legible overlap and complicate one another. Among its many reflections, Derrida dwelled on the notion of tâche —the artist’s mark or touch. This simple gesture, the trace left by the hand, opens a deep reflection on creation, interpretation, and the production of meaning. Seen through a broader lens, the tâche can be r...

Memoirs of the Blind. AI image   Introduction Jacques Derrida’s philosophical project has long been associated with the dismantling of binary oppositions underpinning Western metaphysics: speech/writing, presence/absence, and sense/reference. In Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines (1990), Derrida extends this deconstructive inquiry to the field of visuality. Conceived initially as a text for an exhibition at the Louvre and later published as a richly illustrated book, the work questions the privilege traditionally accorded to sight and redefines the relationship between vision, memory, and representation. Derrida’s meditation on blindness, self-portraiture, and the ruin continues his exploration of the trace —the mark that both reveals and conceals, inscribes and effaces. Through the intertwined figures of the hand and the eye, Mémoires d’aveugle exposes the fragility of all acts of seeing, drawing, and knowing. From Text to Exhibition In 1990, the Louvre in...