Marcel Broodthaers

Created in 1974, ‘Sculpture’ underscores the influence that Broodthaers’s predecessors had on his development as an artist; he had a deep connection with the art and literature of the past, stating: ‘I have just followed the footprints left in the artistic sands by René Magritte and Marcel Duchamp.’ [1] Accordingly, ‘Sculpture’ directly calls to mind the semiotics at play in Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (1917) and Magritte’s ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (1929), which similarly sought to disrupt fixed word-object associations. Here, Broodthaers builds on Magritte’s statement that ‘An object is not so wedded to its name that one cannot find another which suits better’ [2]. Through an act of labelling, Magritte ‘sought to give [objects] a freedom from conventional association’, as Broodthaers does in ‘Sculpture’. [3] Further reflecting on the profound influence that Magritte had on his work, Broodthaers notes: ‘I was haunted by a certain painting by Magritte, the one in which words figure. With Magritte, you have a contradiction between the painted word and the painted, a subversion of the sign of language and that of painting so as to restriction the notion of the subject.’ [4]
Broodthaers’s fascination with word-object associations is deeply rooted in his literary background as a poet. Incidentally, Broodthaers transitioned to a career in art at the age of forty. As an opening statement for his first exhibition in 1964 at Galerie Saint Laurent in Brussels, he expressively stated: ‘I, too, wondered whether I could not sell something and succeed in life …. the idea of inventing something insincere crossed my mind and I set to work right away.’ [5] Throughout his oeuvre, his poetic aesthetic was always simple yet provocative, which is deeply evident in ‘Sculpture’. His practice often involved assembling found materials – such as mussels, eggshells, suitcases and discarded household goods – which communicated simplicity and poverty in the face of big business, mass production and cultural homogeneity. Broodthaers frequently revisited these visual motifs, and through their repetition, he achieved a visual rhetoric that was uniquely and recognisably his own. For example, in ‘Sculpture’, Broodthaers utilises a suitcase as a treasure trove of sorts, containing unconventional and mysterious items, in a similar fashion to his seminal works ‘La Valise Belge (The Belgian Suitcase)’ (1964) and ‘Casserole et moules fermées (Casserole and Closed Mussels)’ (1964).
As a whole, Broodthaers’s aesthetic is often tongue-in-cheek and self-mocking, crafting a unique visual rhetoric through layers of metaphor and poetic thought. Ultimately, his works are playfully ‘insincere’ because, it is only fiction that ‘enables us to grasp reality.’ [6] It is this wit and enigmatic nature of Broodthaers’s work that defined his illustrious (albeit short) twelve-year career, establishing himself as one of the most original artists of his day and as an iconic figure within the history of Conceptual art.

[1] Marge Goldwater, Michael Compton, Douglas Crimp, ‘Marcel Broodthaers’, Minneapolis MN: Walker Art Center, 1989, p. 32.
[2] ReneMagrittequotedinDavidSylvester,‘Magritte’,HoustonTX:MenilFoundation,1992,p.210.
[3] DeborahSchultz,‘MarcelBroodthaers:StrategyandDialogue,’NewYorkNY:PeterLang,2007,p.139.
[4] Marcel Broodthaers, ‘Ten Thousand Francs Reward’, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, in: October, vol. 42, 1987, p. 39.
[5] MarcelBroodthaersquotedinChristopheCherixandManuelBorja-Villel,‘MarcelBroodthaers,’NewYorkNY:MuseumofModernArt,2016, p. 76.
[6] MargeGoldwater,MichaelCompton,DouglasCrimp,’MarcelBroodthaers’,MinneapolisMN:WalkerArtCenter,1989,p.71.