Right of Inspection

The product of a collaboration between French philosopher Jacques Derrida and Belgian photographer Marie-Franccedil;oise Plissart,Right of Inspectionis a visually alluring and engaging tour de force. Beginning with Plissart's hundred-page photo-novel, both the images and Derrida's text meditate on a variety of issues including gender, photographic genre, spectrality, and the interpretive act of seeing. Having seen Plissart's haunting black-and-white imagery, Derrida himself confesses that one cannot resist the compulsion to "make up stories." Recalling his recent preoccupation with ghosts, Derrida spectrally engages two of the most influential visual arts theorists -- Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes. Within the framework of Plissart's project, Derrida engages a discussion of the relation of the photographic image to memory, authenticity, and reality. Responding to the impression of Plissart's world of artifice, reversibility, and seduction, Derrida's text illuminates what is at stake in "the right to look."

Jacques Derrida, who died in 2004, studied and then taught philosophy at the Ecole Normale SupTrieure in Paris. His best known books are Of Grammatology, Dissemination, and The Truth in Painting.

Marie-Frantoise Plissart is a renowned Belgian photographer. Her work has been published and exhibited widely.