![\"Marcel](\"http:\/\/allover-magazin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/01-BROODTHAERS-Vista-de-Sala-1024x715.jpg\")
Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016. Photography: Joaqu\u00edn Cort\u00e9s\/Rom\u00e1n Lores<\/p><\/div>\n
This is L\u2019Entr\u00e9e de l\u2019exposition <\/i>(The Entrance to the Exhibition, 1974), a work that became a classic exposition for a Broodthaers retrospective. It emerged as a mini auto-retrospective on its own right in 1974 at Brussels\u2019 Palais des Beaux-Arts: with a picture that bears the letter \u201ca\u201d, photographs, and printed editions that hang on the walls. Classic is also the prologue of \u201cMarcel Broodthaers: A Retrospective\u201d at Reina Sofia, which begins in the following room with a display of his pre-artistic journalistic, photographic and poetic works. A projection of the first 16 mm film La Clef de l\u2019horloge: Po\u00e8me cin\u00e9matographique en l\u2019honneur de Kurt Schwitters <\/i>(The Key of the Clock: A Cinematographic Poem in the Honor of Kurt Schwitters, 1957) is in the next room, situated by early assemblages made of plaster, eggs, plastic balls and air pipes. Two wooden vitrines with collected objects from different moments in Broodthaers\u2019 production hint toward what is to come. The board is now set, and so the game begins.<\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016. Photography: Joaqu\u00edn Cort\u00e9s\/Rom\u00e1n Lores<\/p><\/div>\n It brings to mind a German children\u2019s game called \u201cIch packe meinen Koffer,\u201d or \u2013 I pack my suitcase, and:<\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers, F\u00e9mur d\u2019homme belge, 1964-1965, 8 x 47 x 10 cm, Collection Sylvio Perlstein, Antwerp. Image courtesy Maria Gilissen Archives of Marcel Broodthaers. (c) The Estate of Marcel Broodthaers c\/o SABAM Belgium \u2013 VEGAP 2016<\/p><\/div>\n As the visitor packs her suitcase, the scholar unpacks her library, and with every object she lays her eyes on, she rediscovers a world order anew. To further paraphrase Walter Benjamin and his confession \u201cUnpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting,\u201d we join the exhibition\u2019s piles of objects<\/i>, some of which are once again seeing the light of museum after several \u201cyears of darkness,\u201d so that we<\/i> \u201cmay be ready to share … a bit of a special mood \u2013 it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Throughout the exhibition the viewer encounters motives, images, figures and works that she may encounter again in a later room \u2013 a chance rendezvous. Thus, the unfolding relations between the works are neither reduced to linear progression nor to strict chronological succession. The initials \u201cM.B.\u201d, for example, emerge first in the printed edition: Gedicht – Poem – Po\u00e8me \/ Change – Exchange – Wechsel <\/i>(1973). It seems to weigh the poetic and monetary value of the signature, and is an integral part of l\u2019Entr\u00e9e de l\u2019exposition<\/i>. In the course of the exhibition the, by now, iconic initials return suggestively as an unlimited edition in the print La Signature. S\u00e9rie I. Tirage illimit\u00e9 <\/i>(The Signature. 1st series. Unlimited edition, 1969), in which the signature repeats ad absurdum. Finally, in the film Une Seconde d’\u00c9ternit\u00e9 (D\u2019apr\u00e8s une id\u00e9e de Charles Baudelaire) <\/i>(A Second of Eternity, After an Idea of Charles Baudelaire, 1970), the initials reemerge, as they were being signed over and over again, in an animated sequence of 24 frames that comprises \u201ca second of eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n This continuous recurrence of signs and figures haunts the spectator. Notably, the approach that Manuel Borja-Villel and Christophe Cherix apply to curating this exhibition follows a strategy the artist implemented already in his own practice: Broodthaers often reused his pieces as readymade material for future productions. He represented an object by image, repeated an image in film, related a film to a publication, and, most famously, recruited a publication and transformed it into an object. The curators effectively demonstrate this correlative principle in a condensed room dedicated to Court-Circuit <\/i>(Short-Circuit), Broodthaers\u2019 1967 solo exhibition at Brussels\u2019 Palais des Beaux-Arts. Next to varying components, a shovel with coal rests on a pedestal placed in front of six photographic canvases bearing its image, and the word \u201cVeritablement\u201d \u2013 meaning \u201ctruly\u201d \u2013 echoes throughout the photographic canvases hanging parallel from each other in the room. One of those pictures reappears on the back cover of Court-Circuit<\/i>\u2019s catalogue, which is also displayed in the vitrine close by.[2]<\/a> For Broodthaers, exhibitions supplied readymade material for catalogues. His catalogues do not merely document the exhibitions but augment them, until it becomes difficult to distinguish ergon<\/i> from parergon<\/i>.[3]<\/a> Fortunately, the curators don\u2019t overlook this aspect of the artist\u2019s production: here all kinds of exhibition-related materials, such as invitation cards, exhibitions brochures, and catalogues, are scattered throughout the exhibition space.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016. Photography: Joaqu\u00edn Cort\u00e9s\/Rom\u00e1n Lores<\/p><\/div>\n Within this overflow, the exhibition is not playing the card of reckless confusion. Broodthaers\u2019 ensembles are installed sensitively in composed groups, as is the case with Le Corbeau et le Renard <\/i>(The Raven and the Fox, 1967-68) \u2013 a film projected onto a special screen with printed words that may refer back to La Fontaine\u2019s fable. Originally, this film was sold in an edition that included two screens and additional photographic canvases. At Reina Sofia all the objects \u2013 screens, film reels, prints \u2013 are presented together in one room. Yet groups of works, like Le Corbeau et le Renard,<\/i> are not cast in marble; here they do not assert a claim for historical irrevocability. Instead, they are exhibited as ensembles, recurring but being loosely connected with works from other sections of the exhibition. Toward its end we re-encounter a work related to Le Corbeau et le Renard,<\/i> in which the doubled image of Broodthaers in the act of writing the fable reappears: Pour un art d’\u00e9criture. Pour une \u00e9criture de l\u2019art <\/i>(On the Art of Writing. On the Writing of Art, 1968) hangs in a room that contains objects from L\u2019Angelus de Daumier <\/i>(The Angelus of Daumier, 1975) \u2013 one of Broodthaers\u2019 last six exhibitions that he announced as \u201cretrospectives.\u201d In view of the artist\u2019s self-curated auto-retrospectives, the task of curating today a posthumous (re-)retrospective becomes even more complicated.<\/p>\n As a format, a retrospective exhibition re-collects into the space of a single institute dispersed works produced in different places and under different circumstances. The passing of time drifts them further apart: some become especially difficult to approach. Such is the case with the multi-sectioned transitory Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Moderne, D\u00e9partement des Aigles <\/i>(Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles, 1968-1972). Others are carried overseas by the market. For example, the collection of Herman Daled, Broodthaers\u2019 friend and collaborator in Brussels, arrived at MoMA in New York. MoMA was also the first station for this world-travelling exhibition that eventually concludes its transatlantic voyage during spring 2017 at Stiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen in D\u00fcsseldorf. It seems that now, with the fortieth anniversary of his untimely death in 1976, Broodthaers is having his \u201cmoment.\u201d[5]<\/a> Within this commemorating atmosphere, it is worth noting that unlike previous attempts to exhibit Broodthaers\u2019 oeuvre, this retrospective at Reina Sofia escapes the trap of a simplified and heroic historical narrative.<\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers, Un coup de d\u00e9s jamais n’abolira le hasard, 1969, artist’s book, offset lithograph on transparent paper, page: 32.4 x 24.9 cm; publisher: Wide White Space Gallery, Antwerp; Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne; printer: Vermin, Antwerp; edition of 90; The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Howard B. Johnson in honor of Riva Castleman, 1994. (c) The Estate of Marcel Broodthaers c\/o SABAM Belgium \u2013 VEGAP 2016<\/p><\/div>\n It seems to deliberately follow poetic threads instead. When it comes to presenting the work of an artist who is as deeply engaged with poetry as Broodthaers, this is of course an achievement. Yet it isn\u2019t the illustration of his poetry that makes the exhibition poetic. Just as Broodthaers\u2019 take on St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9\u2019s Un coup de d\u00e9s jamais n\u2019abolira le hasard <\/i>is not an illustration \u2013 but an Image<\/i>. Passing through the room devoted to his 1969 Exposition litt\u00e9raire autour de Mallarm\u00e9 <\/i>(Literary Exhibition on Mallarm\u00e9) at the Antwerp Wide White Space Gallery, and viewing the artist\u2019s book and aluminum plates where Mallarm\u00e9\u2019s verses turn into black bars, conjures the critical potential of a voyage between words distributed on paper. Broodthaers\u2019 works are similarly dispersed throughout the wide white spaces of the museum, and the spectator becomes a captain who navigates her way through the artist\u2019s playful enigmas.<\/p>\n Throughout the exhibition, the alert spectator-navigator can discover a range of visual alignments. Precisely set up, they do not merely direct the visitor\u2019s view, but also establish communication between works. It is virtually halfway that one quietly recognizes the distinctive background piano music of Un Jardin d\u2019Hiver II <\/i>(A Winter Garden II, 1974). With every step further, the music is becoming louder. After traversing the fictitious Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Moderne<\/i>, and entering a room of films and images that refer to or are allegedly created by Charles Baudelaire, one can finally spot palm branches again. The interlocking relationships developing ever since the exhibition\u2019s beginning demand a break: remarkably \u2013 and the preoccupied voyager will most certainly only now realize \u2013 there are hardly any accommodations for sitting within this exceptionally comprehensive exhibition. Therefore the red chairs in the winter garden come as a welcomed opportunity to rest and watch passersby. (The experienced Broodthaersian will quickly ascertain whether she is really allowed<\/i> to sit, and will happily learn: yes, please, take a seat!) Yet the calm chill-out-atmosphere promotes a certain indisposition. The aestheticized relaxation begins to unravel its multilayered deception and you discover yourself sitting in an elitist western, all-white cube, in the midst of the relics from the colonial era.<\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016. Photography: Joaqu\u00edn Cort\u00e9s\/Rom\u00e1n Lores<\/p><\/div>\n Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n The curatorial decision to limit the resting spots to a few crucial points \u2013 mostly seats already arranged in Broodthaers\u2019 conception of the works \u2013 strains the intense effect of this retrospective. While sitting between the exotic trees on a red chair and recovering from the ongoing play, a view into La Salle Blanche<\/i> (The White Room, 1975) opens up. This wooden, partly white painted reconstruction of Broodthaers\u2019 work and living space is adorned with various art-world related words in black, and is installed in a black-painted room. The confrontation comes as a severe shock: is this a mausoleum? The stage-like model of the apartment on the Rue de la P\u00e9pini\u00e8re, where Broodthaers inaugurated the first section of his Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Moderne, D\u00e9partement des Aigles<\/i>, seems to be entombed here, and the literal sense of posthumous <\/i>becomes apparently urgent. One faces nothingness, as Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Chevrier pointedly stated.[6]<\/a> But you don\u2019t get a break for the work of mourning. The game must go on.<\/p>\n Subsequent to the laid out La Salle Blanche <\/i>and the quasi-recovering room of Un<\/i> Jardin d\u2019Hiver<\/i>, the next room catches you off-guard: we find ourselves standing in D\u00e9cor – A Conquest by Marcel Broodthaers<\/i> (1975), his renown retrospective at the ICA London. Although this installation \u2013 as it is labeled today \u2013 was originally conceived as a film set, at Reina Sofia the visitor cannot decide whether she wants to step on the stage or not. To continue the exhibition, the visitor must<\/i> proceed through the two-room installation, beginning with the 19th<\/sup>-century room. She enters from backstage, from behind two cannons. Amid the museum\u2019s faux-historic ensemble of furniture and objects, positioning supposedly noble chairs on Astroturf, we might ask ourselves: are we the actors, playing around just like the two fake crabs in the vitrine at the corner of the room? The curatorial reinstallation heats up the political implications embedded in D\u00e9cor<\/i>, an interesting choice that definitely calls upon us for testing. Part two of D\u00e9cor<\/i>, the 20th<\/sup>-century room, awaits the spectator with rifles arranged in a glass cabinet on the wall, and a more or less welcoming white plastic table set of four white chairs with striped cushions that match with the sunshade. Unmistakably, this is a model for the petty bourgeois terrace. An unfinished puzzle depicting the battle of Waterloo is strewn on the table. The red chair turns into a white one, which leads to a new question: are we to sit here and complete the puzzle? We would rather leave these seats for someone else but as visitors from the 21st<\/sup>-century, these are seats we inherit.<\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers. A Retrospective, installation view, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2016. Photography: Joaqu\u00edn Cort\u00e9s\/Rom\u00e1n Lores<\/p><\/div>\n Considering D\u00e9cor <\/i>as a film set in the first place, it is regrettable that the film – La Bataille de Waterloo<\/i> (The Battle of Waterloo, 1975), which Broodthaers shot in this d\u00e9cor, is not on view. This is one of the very few \u201cmissing links\u201d of the retrospective. On the other hand, the reconstruction of the DTH<\/i> exhibition, which was presented in 1970 at the MTL gallery in Brussels, is as impressive for being ambitiously meticulous as it is confusing. It includes a reconstruction of the gallery\u2019s window, which was covered with inscriptions and upon which a film was projected during the last day of the MTL show. And so the visitor may view the film from outside of the gallery from within the museum, or, from within the gallery embedded into this retrospective. Finally, the retrospective concludes with another rare opportunity to view the film Figures of Wax (Jeremy Bentham) <\/i>(1974). It projects onto the only white wall in a room covered with dark-brown wooden cabinets. Is this another reconstruction, mimicking the wooden cabinet that encloses the auto-icon of Jeremy Bentham that appears within the film? You first wonder. It turns out to be Reina Sofia\u2019s \u201cprotocol room,\u201d a befitting setting for the film in which Broodthaers gives the dead philosopher an opportunity to \u201cmake a statement,\u201d share \u201ca secret,\u201d \u201cor a special message.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n Marcel Broodthaers, Museum-Museum, 1972, two screenprints, each 83 x 59.1 cm; publisher: Edition Staeck, Heidelberg; printer: Gerhard Steidl, G\u00f6ttingen; edition of 100, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Associates Fund, 1991. (c) The Estate of Marcel Broodthaers c\/o SABAM Belgium \u2013 VEGAP 2016<\/p><\/div>\n You leave the exhibition and find yourself, overwhelmed, a little disoriented, back in a long stone arcade \u2013 somewhat confused too, after confronting a barrage of imitations, copies, originals, fakes. These are all essential to the museum, according to the printed edition Museum-Museum <\/i>(1972), another part of L’Entr\u00e9e de l’Exposition<\/i> with which we started our journey in what seems to be centuries ago. The curators carried out Broodthaers\u2019 striking conquest of space, achieved through a sensitive reading of Mallarm\u00e9, whom Broodthaers sees as \u201cthe founder of contemporary art. \u2018A throw of the Dice will never abolish chance.\u2019\u201d[8]<\/a> And as the throw of the dice repeats, indefinitely, the game continues:<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting, in: Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations, New York 2007, p. 59. You walk down Reina Sofia\u2019s long stone arcade. It encircles a sunny green court garden, which tempts you by its seductive grand windowpanes to relax in the calm and protected interior exterior. But, you are headed towards the palm trees … Continue reading ![\"Marcel](\"http:\/\/allover-magazin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/02-BROODTHAERS-Vista-de-Sala-1024x508.jpg\")
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\n[2]<\/a> Another picture is the eye-catching cover image of the comprehensive catalogue accompanying this retrospective.
\n[3]<\/a> On ergon <\/i>and parergon<\/i>, and the problem of distinguishing between what is interior to a work and what is exterior to it, see Jacques Derrida, The Parergon, in: October, No. 9, Summer 1979, p. 3\u201341, especially p. 24\u201326.
\n[4]<\/a> Here at Reina Sofia, as opposed to MoMA, New York, the first stop of this travelling exhibition. At MoMA the printed matter was mostly absent, as Trevor Stark rightly observes. See Trevor Stark, Marcel Broodthaers, Art Historian\u2019s Artist, in: Texte zur Kunst, No. 103, September 2016: p. 227\u2013232.
\n[5]<\/a> See: The Moment of Marcel Broodthaers? A Conversation, in: October, No. 155, Winter 2016: 111\u2013150. A roundtable-conversation with Benjamin Buchloh, Borja-Villel, Cherix, Stark, Rachel Haidu and Rosalind Krauss, published on the occasion of the retrospective.
\n[6]<\/a> In the panel discussion \u201cEncounter centered on Marcel Broodthaers. What happened to institutional critique?\u201d with Borja-Villel, Cherix, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Chevrier and Dirk Snauwaert, Sabatini Building, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid, 5. 10. 2016.
\n[7]<\/a> Marcel Broodthaers interviewing Jeremy Bentham in his film \u201cFigures of Wax\u201d (1974), for a full transcript see: Wilfried Dickhoff, Marcel Broodthaers: Interviews & Dialoge 1946\u20131976. Kunst Heute Nr. 12, K\u00f6ln 1994, S. 140.
\n[8]<\/a> Marcel Broodthaers, Statement by the Artist, in: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (ed.): Amsterdam, Paris, D\u00fcsseldorf, New York 1972, n.p.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"