What is it about certain things that occupy our thought until we get hold of them, until we somehow possess them? Why is it that we hopelessly, predictably, inevitably fall for certain works of art? What is it about certain objects that seduce us? This chapter seeks to study the seductiveness of objects, something that also preoccupied Jean Baudrillard and is found at the core of his thinking. The work studies a very particular kind of object: the work of art, although consumption and captology, designed objects and other types of objecthood are also used as examples. The
perspective adopted here, however, is not related to the historical or economic contexts of the objects. The truth about seduction will not be sought (it would deceive, anyway); or, indeed, an interpretation for the purposes of academic knowledge, which would kill it; or, again, its representation, which would be a flawed and false undertaking, if not impossible.