James N. Powell > Quotes

“Deconstruction seeks neither to reframe art with some perfect, apt and truthful new frame, nor simply to maintain the illusion of some pure and simple absence of a frame. Rather it shows that the frame is, in a sense, also inside the painting. For the frame is what "produces" the object of art, is what sets it off as an object of art—an aesthetic object. Thus the frame is essential to the work of art; in the work of art. Paint a $5,000 abstract painting on a railroad boxcar and nobody will pay a cent for it. Take a torch, remove the panel of the boxcar, install it in a gallery, and it will be worth $5,000. It will be art because it is now framed by the gallery. But at the same moment that the frame encloses the work in its own protected enclosure, making it a work of art, it becomes merely ornamental—external to the work of art. Thus is the frame central or marginal? Is the frame inside the work of art, essential to it, or outside the work of art, extrinsic to it?”
― James N. Powell, Derrida for Beginners

“It is within and through language that the human mind points to itself.”
― James N. Powell, The Tao of Symbols

“So that to give a commentary on the text, such as we are attempting here, is to reinforce the illusion that a present meaning exists–that a text can be presented.

When I try to present a commentary (as I am doing here), I necessarily resist the suction of the play of meanings which attempts to suck any such attempt–which it produces–back into a void. If I try to explain the text, I forget that the production of my explanation is already related to its dissolution, its disappearance into a textual void, a void between any two readings, a void which is always already producing another reading, and its dissolution.”
― James N. Powell, Derrida for Beginners

“You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair. —Chinese proverb”
― James Powell, A Practical Guide to Family Psychology: You've had a baby - now what?

“Any symbol system that does not encourage a transcendence becomes a prison.”
― James N. Powell, The Tao of Symbols

“When we play religion we find our minds and hearts emptied, for a moment, of secular images as we paint a world of angels, Gods and Saviors.”
― James N. Powell, The Tao of Symbols

“It is our relationship to the symbol, the Word, that is important.”
― James N. Powell, The Tao of Symbols

“Thrasymachus admits that all forms of rule are sciences.”
― James N. Powell, The Tao of Symbols