Marcel Broodthaers 18 (M.B.)

Davis Lisboa, Marcel Broodthaers 18 (M.B.), 2017. Oil on linen, 50 × 50 × 3.5 cm (19.7 × 19.7 × 1.38 in).

Developed within the conceptual framework of Davis Museum Barcelona — conceived by Davis Lisboa and officially recognized by the Government of Catalonia — this painting forms part of The Paintings Section, a body of work dedicated to artists who expanded traditional notions of the museum through the creation of autonomous, fictional, or experimental structures. The project establishes a dialogue with figures who redefined the relationship between artwork, authorship, and institution, shifting the museum beyond its exhibition function into the conceptual and artistic realm.

Marcel Broodthaers 18 (M.B.) takes as its point of departure a still from Figures of Wax (Jeremy Bentham), an experimental film produced by Marcel Broodthaers in 1974, in which the artist reflects on the mechanisms of representation and authority associated with the museum space. The image retains the immediacy of a cinematic capture: a face suspended between two moments, whose fragmentary condition heightens its visual and psychological ambiguity.

The painting’s visual language indirectly recalls Gerhard Richter’s photographic paintings, combining gestural fluidity with visual precision to blur the boundaries between documentary image and painterly interpretation. Soft transitions, diffused contours, and tonal tension allow the portrait to emerge gradually from a dark background, maintaining the unstable and fugitive quality of an image retrieved from visual memory or the film archive.

Executed in oil on linen, the work emphasizes chromatic depth and material density while retaining formal restraint. Its square format establishes a direct dialogue with the cubic geometry of Davis Museum Barcelona, reinforcing the connection between painting, archive, and the artistic practices that transformed the museum into a medium of creation in itself.