‘I, too, wondered whether I could not sell something and succeed in life. For some time I had been no good at anything. I am forty years old ... Finally, the idea of inventing something insincere crossed my mind and I set to work straightaway. At the end of three months I showed what I had produced to Philippe Edouard Toussaint, the owner of the Galerie St-Laurent. “But it is art”, he said, “and I will willingly exhibit all of it.” “Agreed”, I replied. If I sell something, he takes 30%. It seems these are the usual conditions; some galleries take 75%. What is it? In fact it is objects.’
If the word stays at the core of Broodthaers’ creative process – both conceptually and visually – he also employs an array of unusual material, such as egg shells, mussels, bones, newspaper, sponges, bricks or coal that translate on paper through a large body of graphic works and books. Despite an apparent nonchalance, Broodthaers’ words and objects reveal a very coherent analytical approach that unfolds into a strong institutional critique, denouncing the ideology of art while questioning its role and limitations in the age of late capitalism. Behind the appearance of humour and riddles, his oeuvre exploits the increasing discrepancy between signs and things and shows how it affects linguistic, economic and cultural behaviours.
In 1968, Broodthaers created his most iconic work when founding the Musée d’Art Moderne – Département des Aigles, located in his home in Brussels, where he staged many exhibitions, or ‘sections’, sometimes in partnership with European institutions. This long-term installation was an experiment that tested the role of a museum, exploring various themes such as 19th- and 17th-century painting, literature, advertising, figuration, cinema and folk art. After five years spent redefining the boundaries between artist, curator and museum director, he closed the institution in 1972 during Documenta 5 in Kassel, becoming an artist again.
Marcel Broodthaers’ oeuvre has been extensively exhibited in numerous institutions, including a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, traveling to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and to Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (all 2016); Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (2015); Kunstmuseum Basel (2014); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent (2006); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2001); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1998); and Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (1991), amongst others. His works belong to prominent collections, such as the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Städel Museum, Frankfurt; Tate, London; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
