The word deconstruction has attained academic and popular iconicity. After its introduction into literary and philosophical discourse in the United States in the 1970s by the works of Jacques Derrida, deconstruction was widely disseminated with a denotation of ‘destruction’ or conventional ‘analysis,’ much rather than the strict use after Derrida that denotes both a de- and a con-struction as well as performs—visually iconizes—temporalization, processuality, and relationality of meaning making and semiosis. This article reviews the iconization of the Derridean term and asks about the usefulness of discussing cultural iconicity in relation to deconstruction, with particular attention to Byung-Chul Han’s Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese (2011, trans. 2017). Taking exception to representationist theories of social or cultural value of icons, I propose an approach to iconicity through semiotic prominence and pragmatics of material engagement.