No Tricks, No Scams.
Marcel Broodthaers
at the Fridericianum

Marcel Broodthaers
Fridericianum, Kassel
17.07.15 – 15.11.15

Nouveaux trucs, nouvelles combines – resonates as a motto throughout the artistic production of Marcel Broodthaers ( 1924 – 1976 ). Broodthaers repeated this sentence in the two-volume catalogue he produced for ʻL’Angélus de Daumierʼ ( 1975 ), his last self-curated retrospective in Paris. Forty years later, attempts to reconstruct Broodthaers’ oeuvre in posthumous exhibitions are destined to fall into the trap: what would be a faithful representation of tricks and scams? A paradox.

Nowadays, several new exhibitions that are devoted to the artist face Broodthaers’ challenge. Besides timely displays of private collections that manifest personal choices of patrons, accompanied by supplements they handle with care ( Herbert Foundation, Ghent ), we may distinguish between two curatorial approaches to the task: one collects a list of artworks into a factual catalogue of objects unfolding in space, whereas another attempts an unavoidably fictive recollection of the works, through reconstructions of condensed constellations. The recent exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris, which deserves a separate look, manifested the later attitude. It attentively addressed the spectre of Broodthaers, whose own exhibitions, and retrospectives in particular, were always more about constellations than about objects. The current exhibition at the Fridericianum, however, belongs to the objective, factual kind. It is big, museal, playing safe, if playing at all. No tricks, no scams.

As an objective presentation Marcel Broodthaers stands somewhat estranged from the inventive insincerity that characterises Broodthaers’ artistic practice. One of the ‘new tricks’ from quite early on consisted the creation of his own retrospectives, a strategy he further developed under the term Décor. L’Entrée de l’Exposition ( 1974 ) is such a Décor, welcoming the visitors with potted date trees and photographic reproductions of early works. The vegetation’s conquest of the entrance to the exhibition could subversively transform the elevated space of culture into a tamed semi-tropical winter garden. Unfortunately, in the Fridericianum the gesture is rendered decorative. Perhaps the large white-cube rooms of the museum thwartthe constellation. Objects, well distanced from one another,are scattered all through the first floor. And after several objects and rooms, the film Objet ( 1967 ), which Broodthaersproduced on the occasion of his first quasi-retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, shows some of those early objects: accumulations of eggs and mussels, photos of a woman’s eye and mouth, and reproductions thereof, in rooms covered with newspaper. In the film a violinist plays to the works. The impression is of a crazy artist’s studio rather than of artworks in a museum display. Contrary to the current display, the exhibitions Broodthaers staged operated as a ‘compost’ rather than as an ‘archive’, to use a metaphor the curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev phrased in the documenta symposium that took place in the two days following the exhibition opening.

In the invitation to his first solo show ( 1964 ), Broodthaers ironically summed up his early production with a Q&A: ‘What is it? In fact, it is objects.’ In the same invitation he also famously confessed that he had commenced an artistic career since he, too, wondered whether he ‘could not sell something and succeed in life’. Sadly, this invitation is not included in the current show. Pense-Bête ( 1964 ), the unsold copies of a poetry book transformed into sculpture, exemplarily materialised Broodthaers’ transformation from a poet into a visual artist, is also absent. In this sense, the Fridericianum lacks some key works that could have completed the overview of the oeuvre, and further evidence the criticality of the objects that are shown.

In contrast to the spread of the early objects over the white-cube spaces, Projection sur Caisse ( 1968 ) is presented in a dark chamber, in a side room, somewhat out of context. Projection sur Caisse was part of the fictive museum that Broodthaers opened in his living room in Brussels, the by now legendary Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, Section XIXe Siècle, which contained museum postcards of 19th-century artworks hung on the wall, and slides thereof projected on a wooden art-transport box. A few rooms and objects further, on the next floor, stands Section Publicité ( 1972 ), the final section of that fictive museum. The black structure is a self-contained publicity kit, superfluously filled with images of eagles, in posters, comic books, photographs, and earlier publications. In fact, it was originally made for documenta V in Kassel ( 1972 ), allegedly advertising the Section des Figure ( 1972 ) at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, which was soon to close. The re-construction of Section Publicité follows very exact instructions, and here something truly happens, leaving a taste for more. It is reinstalled for the third time in Kassel – in between it was also shown in documenta X ( 1997 ). The current celebrations for the 60th anniversary of documenta could have offered the opportunity to reconstruct more of Broodthaers’ documenta works, such as Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, Section d’Art Moderne ( 1972 ), composed of wall inscriptions and a floor piece, which Broodthaers contradictorily changed in the middle of the documenta exhibition into Musée d’Art Ancien, Département des Aigles, Galérie du XXème Siècle ( 1972 ). Moreover, repositioning works that were previously shown in other documenta editions beyond Broodthaers’ lifetime would have added another historical perspective. For example, a reinstallation of Décor. A Conquest by Marcel Broodthaers ( 1975 ) in the Fridericianum’s rotunda, where it stood during documenta 7 ( 1982 ), would have evoked the work’s previous post-incarnation, in an in-situ, re-reconstruction.

Admittedly, Décor. A Conquest is still a very effective manifestation, in its new reconstruction as well. Here, one room leads to another. The first room is dedicated to the 20th-century, with rifles and pistols on the wall, garden furniture, and a jigsaw puzzle depicting the Battle of Waterloo, partly assembled on the plastic table. The second, 19th-century room, holds cannons, antique chairs, a wooden door, palm trees, a big snake, and crabs playing cards. Wandering between the equipment of film lights that is installed in both rooms, the visitor feels herself inhabiting a historical movie set. Broodthaers makes it clear that we, coming from the 21st-century weapons industry and IKEA solutions, still dwell in that movie, in that history.

It is in this act that a pistol is hung on the wall. It could finally fire in the following one. Accordingly, the reconstructions of Broodthaers’ environments offer the stronger moments in the exhibition, which continues with an excellent display of Salle Blanche ( 1975 ), a full-size model of the by now historical Brussels living-room-cum-museum,containing neither objects nor images, only words inscribed on the walls. Other highlights are the film selection of Cinéma Modèle ( 1970 ), the slides of Bâteau-Tableau ( 1973 ), and the glimpse from the rotunda down to the first floor, occupied by the palm trees of Un Jardin d’Hiver II ( 1974 ). From here the visitor could perhaps return to the beginning, with a new, intriguing view.

During the first morning discussion of the documenta symposium, some speakers passionately debated whether or not a museum of modern art exists in China. Many fingers pointed at MoMA, accusing it of monopolising the definition of modernism. MoMA stood for the quintessential manifestation of an oppressive western institution that renders other modernisms invisible, to blame for appropriating minor narratives into its own self-constructed major narrative. Ironically, next year is Broodthaers’ turn to be appropriated. Through the acquisition of the Daled collection, Broodthaers’ upcoming exhibition at MoMA may bear again the signature of the collector’s choice. What kind of exhibition are we to expect, when the Museum of Modern Art displays the Musée d’Art Moderne, which originated in another part of the world, in which such an institute does yet not exist? Nouveaux trucs, nouvelles combines.