Davis Lisboa, Marcel Broodthaers 13 (Menkès), 2021. Oil on linen, 70 × 70 × 3.5 cm (27.6 × 27.6 × 1.38 in).
Based on a photograph taken in 1969 by Maria Gilissen—Marcel Broodthaers’ wife—during the filming of Un Voyage à Waterloo (Napoléon 1769–1969), the work depicts the artist in front of an art transport truck, La Continentale Menkès. Displaced from its original context, the scene is condensed into an image where document and painterly reconstruction overlap.
The figure is deliberately blurred, built through layers of washes and brushwork that approach the fluidity of watercolor. These veils soften identity and shift the portrait into a more unstable field. The image does not fix its subject but suspends it, allowing presence to dissolve within the act of representation itself.
Within this framework, the work aligns with a lineage of artists who conceived the museum as form—from Duchamp’s portable dispositifs to the discursive structures of Filliou and Broodthaers. The image does not illustrate this trajectory; it activates it through a restrained visual economy.
Executed in oil on linen using high-quality materials, the composition adopts a square format that introduces a sense of containment and balance. In line with the structure of the Davis Museum, the painting belongs to a specific section in which the work retains its autonomy while engaging with a broader exhibition system.
