According to The Free dictionary Deconstruction is “a philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words, and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meaning”. Or in a pretty straightforward definition taken out from the M-W Learner’s dictionary  Deconstruction is “a theory used in the study of literature or philosophy which says that a piece of writing does not have just one meaning and that the meaning depends on the reader”.

Now how does this apply to art?

Deconstruction is a way of understanding how something was created, usually things like art, books, poems and other writing. It means breaking something down into smaller parts. Deconstruction looks at the smaller parts that were used to create an object. The smaller parts are usually ideas.

Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture. Maybe you were lucky enough to see in person some of its finest examples like the building of the Guggenheim Museum Museum in Bilbao or Libeskind’s War Museum in Manchester. Examples in architecture can be found in other countries as well.

For this challenge you may want to publish photos of deconstructivist architecture or explore the idea of deconstruction in an example of your own artistic analysis like I did in the image bellow.

If you like being challenged and want to push yourself creatively, then this is the challenge for you. 

Further reading:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/deconst/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/deconstruction

About Thursday’s Special: it is a colour photo challenge that takes place on Thursdays. Concrete themes are provided and announced well in advance. See the Scheduled Challenges page. You are supposed to make a post on the given theme (today it is deconstruction), link to this post, and leave your links in the comment section bellow. The deadline is Tuesday 13 September.

P.S. After reading your comments and Tobias’s post I realised that I should have put some kind of explanation for the image above.  In my photographic analysis I focused on the premise that “deconstruction looks at the smaller parts that were used to create an object, and that the smaller parts are usually ideas.” I shot a bunch of clothes pegs lined up together focusing on the idea of a coil (spring) in the core of a clothes peg. The idea of pinching is in the bottom of a peg idea, to attach clothes to a rope. 

Here are the responses to the challenge:

https://artishorseshit.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/deconstruction/

https://tishfarrell.com/2016/09/15/blown-away-opium-poppy-thursdays-special

https://geriatrixfotogallerie.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/on-the-move-2

https://ameditativejourney.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/thursdays-special-deconstruction

https://ledrakenoir.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/strong-but-sensitive-protection/

https://smallbluegreenwords.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/thursday-special-9/

https://jennysotherstuff.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/deconstruction

https://empireoflights.com/2016/09/16/deconstruction

https://dailymusing57.com/2016/09/18/thursdays-special-deconstruction

https://beyondthebrushphotography.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/the-bridge

https://picturesimperfectblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/die-quadratur-des-aluhuts-the-quadrature-of-the-tinfoil-hat/

https://lucidgypsy.com/2016/09/20/thursday-special-deconstruction/

https://suejudd.com/2016/09/21/deconstruction