
Marcel Broodthaers Artworks
Belgian Conceptual Artist, Filmmaker and Poet
Movements and Styles: Conceptual Art, Institutional Critique
Born: January 28, 1924 - Brussels, Belgium
Died: January 28, 1976 - Cologne, Germany

Artworks by Marcel BroodthaersThe below artworks are the most important by Marcel Broodthaers - that both overview the major creative periods, and highlight the greatest achievements by the artist. | |
![]() Artwork Images | La Clef de l'Horloge: Poème Cinématographique en l'Honneur de Kurt Schwitters (The Key to the Clock: Cinematographic Poem in Honor of Kurt Schwitters) (1957)Artwork description & Analysis: Broodthaers decided to become an artist full-time in 1964, but he experimented before then with various media - most significantly, film, to which he returned repeatedly throughout his subsequent career. In Broodthaers' films, he reveals his inner playfulness even more so than in his other works, and La Clef de l'Horloge, made in 1957, hints at this. Its creation is the result of an after-hours shoot of an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters' work at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (Broodthaers was only able to gain access with the assistance of the night guards). Broodthaers focuses closely on fragments of Schwitters' works, in many cases collages, where Schwitters has removed excerpts of material from advertisements, labels, and other commercial packaging - usually featuring numbers and letters - and recast them in a nearly-nonsensical context akin to Dada works. The narration at the beginning of La Clef de l'Horloge consists of a man describing the works, noting that Schwitters was the inventor of "Merz" art - a combination of the contemporary influences of commercialism and the disruptive nature of Dada. It then shifts to the recitation of a love poem, fitting because Schwitters himself was a poet, like Broodthaers. Much of the spoken words in the film are recorded over the tick-tock of a clock, suggesting the passage of time. 16 mm film, black and white, sound, 7min 40 sec - Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona |
![]() Artwork Images | Pense-Bête (Memory Aid) (1964)Artwork description & Analysis: In 1964, Broodthaers tried his hand at visual art by taking unsold copies of his latest volume of poetry, titled Pense-Bête, and encasing them sloppily in a mix of plaster and other materials. As his first "official" piece, Pense-Bête set the tone for the rest of Broodthaers' artistic output, including his pursuit of preserving ideas of experience. Here, he takes his "failed" poetry - which didn't sell - and converts it into something new that actually was considered to be successful, worthy of preservation. Books, paper, plaster, plastic balls on wood base 11 4/5 x 33 3/10 x 16 9/10 in - Collection Flemish Community, long-term loan S.M.A.K. |
![]() Artwork Images | Un jardin d'hiver II (A winter garden II) (1974)Artwork description & Analysis: One of Broodthaers' running themes in his work is the idea of an installation as a movie set. This piece, the second in his Un Jardin d'Hiver series, approximates the interior setting reminiscent of colonial-era Palm Courts, a decision that references two historical circumstances. More generally, Broodthaers alludes to the display of artwork in cultural institutions as a staged gathering place for an economic and social elite to voyeuristically view the experience and life of the "other" - either the lower-class subjects of art or the pedestrian artists themselves - a move possibly influenced by Broodthaers' own longtime experience as a starving, aspiring writer. On a more specific level, the use of palm trees and selection of decorative imagery is a direct link to Belgium's pre-1960 colonization of Africa - where an elite European culture exploited the so-called "primitive" civilizations and cultures of the Congo. Six photographs of 19th century etchings, painted chairs, 30 potted palms, 16-mm film - Estate Marcel Broodthaers |
![]() Artwork Images | La Salle blanche [The White Room] (1975)Artwork description & Analysis: The initial purpose of La Salle blanche was to be a recreation of the apartment-studio where Broodthaers had inaugurated his Musée d'art moderne in Brussels in 1969. He hired a group of carpenters and fabricators, but during construction changed his mind and instead declared that it was simply a recreation of the typical bourgeois interior; the absence of a color scheme on the walls speaks to the "generic" nature of the setting (and possibly the spare, austerity of the existence of a starving artist or writer, like Broodthaers during the first 40 years of his life). Broodthaers instead covered the walls with words related to the creation and understanding of art: "gallery," "collectors," "color," "perspective," "amateur," "shadow," "paper," etc. Wood, photographs, light bulb, paint, and cord, 153 9/16 x 132 5/16 x 259 1/16 in - Centre Pompidou, Paris/Musée national d'art moderne, Centre de création industrielle |
![]() Artwork Images | Décor: A Conquest (XIXth and XXth Century Rooms) (1975)Artwork description & Analysis: Created for the inauguration of the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (UK), Broodthaers' two "decor" rooms representing the 19th and 20th century show his engagement with a complex network of themes, including language, memory, and the boundary between reality and a staged or invented experience. The idea of the "period room" itself involves a space that acts as a repository for items that most vividly remind us of the past. But rather than simply evoke the idea of an interior from these two centuries, Broodthaers attempts to illustrate the full range of human experience from these respective eras. The high-backed upholstered chairs, chandeliers, and plants in the 19th-century room, for example, are juxtaposed with period cannons, a taxidermied snake and old revolvers, all afforded their own artificial grass "podiums" - as if to say that war and encounters with the exotic were as much a part of the century's human condition as the furnishings. Likewise, in the 20th-century room, the plastic lawn furniture includes a table on which rests a jigsaw puzzle of a print depicting the 19th-century Battle of Waterloo (A British victory ending the Napoleonic Wars which, incidentally, took place on Belgian soil). Nearby sits a rack with modern high-powered weaponry, indicating how our understandings of furnishings and war have been transformed, and arguably the incomplete puzzle refers to the difficulty of piecing together an understanding of the past. Mixed-medium installation - Estate Marcel Broodthaers and Michael Werner Gallery |
![]() Artwork Images | Cercle de Moules [Circle of Mussels] (1966)Artwork description & Analysis: Many of Broodthaers' major works from the beginning of his artistic career in the mid-1960s engaged with questions of national identity. Mussels, often considered the Belgian national dish, became an ideal subject matter for confronting this theme. His use of mussel shells only means that he favors the organic detritus, versus the actual consumable portion - thus, the remnants in the discard pile instead of the valuable meat. Yet, Broothaers has saved the shells and preserved them by permanently attaching them to the panel and coating them with resin. He then hangs the panel on the wall just like a painting, thereby elevating the so-called trash to the status of high art. Like in Pense-Bête, Broodthaers' recontextualization of a pile of throwaway items has allowed him to recast them as culturally significant. Mussel shells, tinted resin on panel, 63" diameter - Private Collection, courtesy Hauser & Wirth |
![]() Artwork Images | Musée d'Art Moderne [Museum of Modern Art] (1968-1972)Artwork description & Analysis: Perhaps no work shows Broodthaers' willingness to place himself and his experiences into the historical canon - on his own terms - than his Musée d'Art Moderne. Developed and displayed over a four-year period, the work took on different iterations in the form of "exhibitions," which used found objects, written words, and other re-appropriated media to make a "museum" that was unlike any other cultural institution. In a sense, this work laid the groundwork for the conceptual art movement that would come later in the century. Mixed-medium installation - 19th century Section: MoMA, Publicity Section: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Financial Section Gold Bars: Galerie Beaumont, Luxembourg |
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Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Peter Clericuzio
" Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Peter Clericuzio
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First published on 28 Nov 2016. Updated and modified regularly.
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