ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on visual artworks foregrounding the object a as cedable object one moment before its ostensible loss. It presents answers to the questions from two contrasting theoretical perspectives. According to the first, which stems from Hegel's aesthetics, the act of self-portraiture partakes of the essence of art as a manifestation of the spirit, and hence imbues the art object with life. Secondly, the chapter offers a psychoanalytical position different from these two contrasting perspectives on the nature of self-portraiture. It explores the relation between these two features and interrogates its significance as a manifestation of the compulsion to repeat. The chapter examines another aspect of the artwork in its relation to the death drive. This aspect has to do with the artwork as cedable object, as a body part that falls yet persists despite its seeming ruin. In the field of visual art, this aspect appears most prominently in the genre of the self-portrait.
