Speculative Taxidermy

INTRODUCTION41

first place.^85 Essentially he reads Las Meninas as a sedimentation of the
discourses and practices that characterize the classical episteme; there-
fore Velasquez’s painting is one about representation and the impossibil-
ity of critically questioning representation as an epistemic tool of the clas-
sical age itself. The strength of his approach lies in his ability to construct
new tools for the production of knowledge through art, and this strength
has not gone unnoticed in art history discourses.^86 Ultimately, Foucault’s
approach to painting has contributed to the emergence of new thinking
in French philosophy, which in turn led to the New Art History of the
1970s and 1980s.^87 But moving beyond the emphasis given to Las Meninas
in Foucault’s approaches to painting, my research has focused on his sub-
stantially undervalued work on Manet and Magritte and his lesser-known
works on Gérard Fromanger.^88 Although, as mentioned, Foucault’s ap-
proach to animals is generally not aligned with human/animal studies
perspectives, it is important to note that The Order of Things famously
opens with a passage from “a certain Chinese encyclopedia” centered on
an animal taxonomy—one that transcends the classical organization of
western science.

The encyclopedia divides animals into the following categories: a) be-

longing to the Emperor, b) embalmed, c) tame, d) sucking pigs, e) sirens,

f) fabulous, g) stray dogs, h) included in the present classification,

i) frenzied, j) innumerable, k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,

l) et cetera, m) having just broken the water pitcher, n) that from a long

way off look like flies.^89

From a human/animal studies perspective it is compelling to note that an
unorthodox animal taxonomy can expose the limitations of man’s think-
ing, to reveal the fictitiousness and arbitrariness of such ordering exer-
cises upon which our lives are nonetheless structured.
It is thus from this very point that Foucault’s archaeological reconfig-
uring of general grammar and philology, natural history and biology, and
the analysis of wealth and political economy can begin.^90 It is from the
possibility of conceiving radically different ontologies between man and
animals that western thought can be thus brought into question, and in
this sense the mistrust for realism nurtured by speculative taxidermy can