Marcel Broodthaers 26

This painting draws inspiration from a black-and-white photograph of Marcel Broodthaers taken by Maria Gilissen in July 1969, during the filming of Un voyage à Waterloo (Napoléon 1769–1969). Broodthaers, standing before an art transport truck wearing a false nose, stages a moment of absurdity that encapsulates his critical approach to authorship, memory, and the institution. My work reimagines this scene, adding a dramatic atmosphere with floating surrealist pipes and orbiting numbers and letters.

The piece reflects on a lineage of artists who created their own museums—Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise, Filliou’s Galerie Légitime, and Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles. In this tradition, the Davis Museum Barcelona stands as a contemporary iteration: born inside a ballot box, expanded via digital platforms, and officially recognized by the Generalitat de Catalunya. It operates as a ready-made, a nonprofit art collective, and a digital archive.

The “Painting Section of the Davis Museum Barcelona” is the only one offering works for acquisition (via Saatchi Art), thematically organized—Animals, Interiors, Classical Mythology, Historical Painting—in tribute to conceptual forebears. I paint exclusively in oil on linen using Old Holland pigments and Talens mediums. The square formats echo the museum’s cubic geometry. This piece belongs to my Full-Color Period (since 2019).