The Lexicon · Genealogy · Modern
SAID, EDWARD
1935–2003
Orientalism (The Wall Text's Asymmetry)
Said: the West constructed the Orient as a managed image, useful for governance, that bore little relation to the place. CoCA's wall texts confess their own constructive role. We are not transparent windows. We are the institutional Orientalism of the artist: we manage the image. We say so on the wall. The honesty does not eliminate the asymmetry. The honesty is the alternative to denying it.