This Is Not a Pipe
- Author: Michel Foucault
- Year of publication: 2016
- Translator: Natalie Mtivlishvili
- Page quantity: 95
- Cover designer / Illustrator: Nino Khosruashvili
- Language: Georgian
- Category: NON-FICTION
- ISBN: 978-9941-9414-8-1
In This is Not a Pipe, Michel Foucault offers a philosophical and semiotic reading of René Magritte’s famous painting The Treachery of Images. On this artwork, the image of a pipe is accompanied by the paradoxical phrase: “This is not a pipe.” At first glance, this statement seems absurd, but Foucault invites us to look beyond the obvious. According to him, Magritte disrupts our tendency to confuse things with their representations. The image of a pipe is not an actual pipe, but a depiction of one. Thus, the phrase does not deny reality, but reminds us that a drawing is never the object itself. Foucault explores the complex relationship between words, images, and reality. This short essay becomes a thought exercise on language, art, and representation. It highlights the limits of resemblance and shows how what we see and what we read can diverge. This is Not a Pipe thus becomes a profound reflection on the power of signs and how they shape our perception of the world.