Derrida and the Parergon

The paper takes a section from Derrida's critique of Kant's Aesthetic in The Truth in Painting where Derrida is both literally and metaphorically talking about the significance of the frame, and from that shows how the frame can be seen as a specific example of Derrida's central concept of 'differance', and that the arguments he makes about the frame is characteristic of an argument he deploys in many of his texts whereby he interrogates our common-sense assumptions about the grounding and logic of our concepts. Exposition of his central concerns are explored through a consideration of notions of 'interiority' and 'exteriority' and the manner in which - in the light of Saussurian theories of meaning (shared by both Structuralist and Post-structuralists) - the conditions for their intelligibility subvert our common sense notion of their mutual exclusivity. This is then elaborated and its implications for our understanding of art drawn out by a discussion of examples where claims have been made for the 'interiority' of meaning, Fried on Olitski's 'Pink Shush', Judd on his own 'Specific Objects'. Finally the implications of Derrida's ideas are brought to bare on art writing/criticism, not the least of which is that 'meaning', and claimed meaning is always in relation to a body of knowledge, whether overtly acknowledged by the writer/critic or not.