(jazzy music) Voiceover: The Museum of Art, in LACMA, and we're looking at Magritte's The Treachery of Images from 1929 or also called N'est pas une pipe, this is not a pipe. Voiceover: It's a hilarious painting. Voiceover: (chuckles) It is hilarious! It's an incredibly real
painting of a pipe. Voiceover: Magritte paints in this incredibly wonderful matter-of-fact, absolutely mundane, illustrative style. Voiceover: Yes, like he
was illustrating a catalog. Voiceover: And with the words underneath, it's as if you're looking
at one of the flashcards you would have as a
child where it would say Voiceover: That would say "pipe" but it says, "This is not a pipe"! Voiceover: That's right. And, of course, he's
right, it's not a pipe. It's a painting of a pipe. Voiceover: But it is a pipe. Voiceover: Where is the authority? Do we believe what we're
seeing in the veracity of the illustration, the sort of perfect representation of the
almost platonic pipe? Voiceover: It's the "or" pipe. Voiceover: It's the "or" pipe, exactly. Or, do we believe the text underneath, which tells us it's not a pipe? Which is stronger, the
representation of the thing or the language that denies it? Voiceover: For me? Voiceover: Yeah, for you. Voiceover: The picture of the pipe. Voiceover: The picture of
the pipe is more powerful than the language? Voiceover. Yes. Voiceover: That's so interesting
because I think for most ... Maybe that's because
you're an art historian. Voiceover: Maybe that's why
I became an art historian! Voiceover: (chuckles) Maybe so! Voiceover: I believe whatever I see. Voiceover: Because so many people believe what they read and in a sense I think the language has a kind of authority. For me, there's this sort of perfect almost balance and
struggle between the two where I just absolutely accept that pipe. It's there. It's this pipe. It's this perfect
representation of a pipe. The language is completely denying it and has tremendous authority as well. It's this fantastic tension
between that presentation and then that rejection
of the presentation. Voiceover: Then of course
there's the word "pipe" which is in a way just
as much an abstraction from the actual item of the pipe. Voiceover: Ah, okay. So the representation
of the pipe is two-fold. There's the representation of the pipe Voiceover: As an image. Voiceover: As an image that's iconic. Voiceover: And then there's the word. Voiceover: This linguistic symbol. Voiceover: Yeah. Voiceover: And they're both not a pipe. Voiceover: They're both
not a pipe! (chuckles) Voiceover: That's right. They're both actually ways
of representing a pipe or our notion of what that pipe is in somebody's mouth somewhere. Voiceover: What else could
this be a picture of? It is a pipe! Voiceover: So you're denying the text. They're both in the painting. Voiceover: Okay, so when
Magritte paints this he's clearly challenging this notion of authority and which and
what and it's really playful. Voiceover: And also it's
challenging the whole illusionistic history
of Western art, right? Voiceover: No question about it. And he's doing it again
with a kind of faux naturalism, right, with
this kind of self-conscious naturalism which really sort of transcends naturalism in its sort of self reference. Voiceover: Perfectly
painted and model of a pipe. Voiceover: But also
perfectly written text. Because the script is
again the kind of didactic script that you would find
in a kindergarten classroom, which is really meant to be instructive and meant to be full of authority. So this is a painting
really about the denial of authorities of language
and representation, isn't it? Voiceover: I guess so. I remember when my
daughter was really little and I woke up every morning and she looked at books with pictures just like this one, then pointed and I had to
give her the names for things. Voiceover: You could have
really screwed her up by giving her a book which said, "This is not a pipe"! (laughs) (jazzy music)