Marcel Broodthaers
(Sint-Gillis,
1924 - Keulen,
1976 )
In 1943, Marcel Broodthaers discontinues his studies in chemistry at the Université Libre de Bruxelles to devote himself to poetry. That same year, he joined the Parti communiste de Belgique. In 1947, he is a signatory of the surrealist pamphlet La cause est entendue, which opposes the views of André Breton. Between 1957 and 1964, Broodthaers published four books of poetry. Shuttling between Paris and Brussels, he worked as an art critic, bookseller, photographer, filmmaker, used-book dealer, plumber's helper, night watchman and poet. He traded his life as a jack-of-all-trades in 1964 for an existence as an artist. Broodthaers makes saleable objects such as Pense-bête (1964), which contains the core of his work. In the style of Marcel Duchamp, he glues unsold copies of his book of poetry of the same name to a pedestal with plaster, turning them into works of art. Broodthaers' cult status as a pioneer of conceptual art in Belgium was underscored anno 2019 with a retrospective exhibition at M HKA.
