The Dialectic of Presence and Absence

To illustrate the dialectic of presence and absence, he [Zizek] recounts the story of a guide conducting some visitors round an East European art gallery nad halting before a painting entitled 'Lenin in Warsaw'. There is no sign of Lenin in the picture; instead, it depicts Lenin's wife in bed with a handsome young member of the Central Committee. 'But where is Lenin?' inquire the bemused visitors, to which the guide gravely replies: 'Lenin is in Warsaw.' Terry Eagleton on Zizek (Figures of Dissent, p. 204)

Hotdog - Eagleton parodying Zizek (Figures of Dissent, p. 204)

The following captures something of his [Zizek] characteristic intellectual style: 'At first glance it would seem that the sausage in the hot dog wedges apart the two pieces of roll. But the roll itself is nothing but a "space" which the sausage creates around it, the phantasmal "frame" or support of the sausage without which it would vanish to nothing. On the other hand, the sausage itself can be seen as no more than an embodied gap between two pieces of bread, the mere pretext or occasion which prevents them from ever uniting.