Marcel Broodthaers 23

Davis Lisboa, Marcel Broodthaers 23, 2024. Oil on linen, 50 × 50 × 3.5 cm (19.7 × 19.7 × 1.38 in).

This work belongs to The Paintings Section of Davis Museum Barcelona, one of the sections of this mini museum, digital archive, and collective artistic project initiated in 2009. The Davis Museum extends a narrative tradition linked to artists who conceived the museum itself as a work of art, including Boîte-en-valise by Marcel Duchamp, Galerie Légitime by Robert Filliou, and Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles by Marcel Broodthaers. Situated between archive, fiction, and institutional critique, the project explores new forms of circulation and digital presentation in contemporary art.

The painting takes as its point of departure a well-known photographic portrait of Marcel Broodthaers taken in Brussels in 1969 during the filming of Un Voyage à Waterloo (Napoléon 1769–1969). In the original image, the Belgian artist appears wearing a fake nose in front of a truck belonging to the art transport company La Continentale Menkès. Marked by humor and theatricality, the scene encapsulates several central concerns within Broodthaers’ work, particularly his interest in representation and the symbolic mechanisms of the art system.

Here, the scene is transformed into a restrained portrait that combines an atmosphere reminiscent of Baroque chiaroscuro with a contemporary visual sensibility. Fragmented text, softened contours, and the reduction of visual elements reinforce the ambiguous and psychological character of the image.

Deep shadows, a restrained chromatic palette, and concentrated lighting give the composition a sense of tension and introspection, positioning the portrait between historical reference and contemporary reinterpretation.