Marcel Broodthaers

Marcel Broodthaers (Belgium, 1924-1976) began his work as a visual artist at the age of 40. His training as a poet is coupled with his intention to give materiality to language; for this, he alternates with various media such as sculpture, installation, artist’s book, painting, and film. His formal solutions are reminiscent of Magritte, surrealism, and pop, which give meaning to the pieces and provide them with humor and poetry, both important elements in Broodthaers’ work. He made constant revisions to the museum structure, as in Musée d’Art Moderne, Départment des Aigles (1968) , and managed to articulate an institutional critique that turned him into an inevitable reference for later generations.

This book is a compilation of poems, pieces, images, and interviews that are fundamental to Broodthaers’ work and have been translated into Spanish. The edition surveys the most outstanding ideas of the artist’s work; it moves between the multiple formal and conceptual outlets, presenting a broad panorama of some of his projects and the context in which they were developed. This book addresses issues such as modernity, the figure of the museum, and the social and economic dynamics of the art circuit. It is a synthetic selection, whose translation allows the preservation of those word games that give meaning to Broodthaers’ work.