226THIS IS NOT A HORSEto operate on two levels. On aesthetic grounds, the object appears as the
sedimentation of artistic discourses and practices, while on a semantic
one, it dislocates the naturalized interlinking of discourses and practices
through a process of nonaffirmation.
In the case of It’s Hard to Make a Stand, the juxtaposition of different
surfaces and materials can be further problematized by the Foucauldian
concept of heterotopia.^17 Standing in opposition to the idealistic homoge-
neity and unreality of utopias in classical painting are the counter-sites
of heterotopia as characterized by an existence in a reality demarcated by
an ontologically unstable heterogeneity.^18 Although Foucault constitu-
ently configured heterotopias as the power/knowledge structures of
physical spaces such as the cemetery, the museum, the library, and the
garden,^19 in the introduction of The Order of Things the concept emerges
in relation to the famous passage from Borges—the one from the “certain
Chinese encyclopedia.”^20 This constitutes one of the most powerful forms
FIGURE 7.1 Steve Bishop, It’s Hard to Make a Stand, 2009. Fur coat, polyurethane,
polythene, mirrored acrylic, wood. 215 × 196 × 102 cm. Courtesy of the artist and
Carlos/Ishikawa. Photography by Michael Heilgemeir. © Steve Bishop.