Boîte-hors-de-valise 16 (MoMA)

This painting stages Marcel Duchamp’s iconic «Boîte-en-valise» on a beach of indeterminate location—Atlantic or Mediterranean?—symbolically “crowned” with the acronym «MoMA» (Museum of Modern Art, New York). The scene oscillates between reverence and irony toward institutional authority, affirming the artist-curator as constructor of their own legacy. By referencing Duchamp’s portable museum, the painting joins a lineage of artists who created their own exhibition spaces, such as Robert Filliou’s «Galerie Légitime» (1962–1963) and Marcel Broodthaers’ «Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles» (1968–1972). The pictorial space is open and austere, with a flat sandy surface contrasting the almost architectural presence of the suitcase. Part of “The Paintings Section from Davis Museum Barcelona,” a miniature museum founded in 2009 in a ballot box, the work reflects on the museum as both display site and subject of artistic inquiry.