Marcel Broodthaers 6

Davis Lisboa, Marcel Broodthaers 6, 2016. Oil on linen, 40 × 40 × 3.5 cm (15.7 × 15.7 × 1.38 in).

The work is based on a still from the experimental film La Pluie, Projet Pour Un Texte, in which Broodthaers stages the impossibility of writing under adverse conditions. The absence of a face shifts the image toward a more closed and hermetic dimension, suspending direct identification and reinforcing its enigmatic quality.

The painting operates within a logic close to Gerhard Richter’s photo-paintings, where the translation of photographic imagery into oil introduces a deliberate instability. The softly blurred surface oscillates between emergence and erasure, activating an ambiguity that affects both legibility and the memory of the scene.

The blue monochrome envelops the image in a melancholic atmosphere, intensifying its introspective character. This chromatic reduction not only unifies the composition, but also situates the work within a restrained emotional register, where the painting asserts itself through an economy of means.

Integrated into The Paintings Section From Davis Museum Barcelona, the piece forms part of a broader framework in which painting and institution operate as a single field. The series brings together figures such as Marcel Duchamp (Boîte-en-valise), Robert Filliou (Galerie légitime), and Broodthaers himself (Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles), establishing a dialogue between artistic practice and museum construction within the formal language of the Davis Museum.