Background
Marcel Broodthaers was born on January 28, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium.
artist filmmaker sculptor poet
Marcel Broodthaers was born on January 28, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium.
Broodthaers began dabbling in journalism, film, and poetry in 1944. He worked primarily as a poet until the age of 40. After spending 20 years struggling as a poet, he decided in 1964 to become an artist and began to make objects.
Broodthaers announced his entry into the visual arts by transforming the unsold copies of his last volume of poetry "Pense-Bête" ("Memory aid") (1964) into a sculpture for his first solo exhibition.
By borrowing methods from Pop Art and Conceptual Art, among other genres and movements, Marcel was able to appropriate them for his own artistic objectives. One of his well-known works "Casserole and Closed Mussels" (1965) was crafted from found objects, such as household items, eggshells, and, as the title indicates, mussels, and conveys the sense of tension between poverty and the mass production and consumption associated with big business and capitalism.
Additionally, Marcel created a series of temporary exhibitions or installations known as Décors, for which he is best known. He made his first film in 1957, and from 1967 he produced over 50 short films in documentary, narrative, and experimental styles.
From 1968 to 1975 Broodthaers produced large-scale environmental pieces that reworked the very notion of the museum. His most noted work was an installation which began in his Brussels house which he called "Musée d'Art Moderne, Départment des Aigles" (1968). This installation was followed by a further eleven manifestations of the "museum", including at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf for an exhibition in 1970 and at documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972.
From late 1969 Marcel lived mainly in Düsseldorf, Berlin, and finally London.
In 1974 Broodthaers launched three separate exhibitions in the same week, each consisting of a new type of installation artwork he referred to as “décors". In 1975 he presented the exhibition "L’Angelus de Daumier" at the Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Paris, at which each room had the name of a color. His innovative use of all types of materials and media solidified his legacy as an artist who successfully demonstrated the intertwining of art, media, and culture.
Marcel Broodthaers died of a liver disease on January 28, 1976, on his 52nd birthday, in Cologne, Germany. His tombstone was designed by himself.
The Visual Tower
L'erreur
Tapis de Sable
Peintures (L'art et les mots)
Minuit
Large Pot of Mussels
Miroir
Les Animaux de la Ferme
Chapeau blanc
Ne diets pas que je ne l'ai pas dit - Le Perroquet
Pipe, 1969
Panneau de moules
Pipe
Fémur d’homme belge & fémur de la femme francaise
White Cabinet and White Table
Le Corbeau et le Renard
Panel with Eggs and Stool
During his short yet prolific period as an artist, he radically rethought conventional approaches to poetry, film, books, and exhibition practice itself, proving enormously influential to future generations of artists.
Quotations: "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."
Broodthaers was associated with the Groupe Surréaliste-revolutionnaire in Brussels, Belgium, from 1945.
Broodthaers had a life-long interest in the circulatory power of printed matter: posters, graphics, editions, and artist books.