“There are no primary structures other than that of the language that defines them.”
—Marcel BroodthaersHoused in the same private collection for almost half a century and offered for the first time at auction, Éloge du sujet is an exemplary example of Marcel Broodthaers' pioneering, radical approach. Executed shortly before the artist’s untimely passing in 1976, Éloge du sujet demonstrates the tongue-in-cheek humour, critical wit and irreverence typical of the Belgian artist’s output. Included in Broodthaers’ acclaimed exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1974 while on long-term loan to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Éloge du sujet was also exhibited as part of the artist’s landmark retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York that travelled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf from 2016 to 2017.

 

Language

 

Challenging the integrity of systems and structures so fundamental to modern society, Broodthaers examined and undermined the relationship between language and object. Continuously researching ‘the plastic value of language’ from the onset of his career, Broodthaers was familiar with Surrealist ideas that challenged the infallibility of semiotic systems long before his entry into the visual arts at the end of 1963.ⁱ A group that dominated the artistic and intellectual life of Brussels after the war, Broodthaers particularly associated with the theses of René Magritte and his contribution to La Révolution surréaliste, meeting the artist in 1945. 

 

“There is a contradiction in Magritte between the painted word and the painted object, a subversion of the sign of language and of painting that serves to narrow the significance of the notion of subject.”
—Marcel Broodthaers

As Magritte had switched familiar meanings and representations ‘[making] pictures where the objects were represented with the appearance they have in reality’ but ‘situated where we would never meet them’, Broodthaers in Éloge du sujet continues to disrupt cultural sign systems.ⁱⁱ Affixing the labels ‘couleur’ (colour), sujet (subject), ‘cheveux’ (hair) to commonplace, ubiquitous objects not associated with these phrases, Broodthaers like Magritte destabilises social and cultural associations between each entity and language. Revisiting visual motifs like eggs and mussels to communicate his ideas, the case was among the everyday objects that were reconceived by Broodthaers. As Marcel Duchamp had reproduced and re-interpreted manufactured objects through his ‘valises’ to create new meaning, Broodthaers explains he was trying ‘by means of trivial, everyday objects to restore the link between the object and its image […] and to incorporate this dual concept of flatness and volume into the same entity’.ⁱⁱⁱ With Dada impulse, Broodthaers in Éloge du sujet challenges relational aesthetics, allowing the viewer to reconsider our own relationship to each object.

 

Visionaries: The Herbig Collection

Residing in the Herbig family for almost five decades, Éloge du sujet is typical of the families’ novel collection, celebrating artists like Gerhard Richter and Bruce Nauman long before they achieved worldwide acclaim. A collection established by renowned scientist Dr. Jost Herbig and his wife, notable jewellery designer Barbara Herbig, Broodthaers first met the couple in Düsseldorf in 1970: an encounter that would lead to a close friendship until the artist’s tragic death at fifty-two. Broodthaers had personally selected and placed the finest examples of his work with the Herbig family to ensure they would remain in the hands of collectors who were sure to be stewards of his legacy. Éloge du sujet therefore is a testament to the relationships and passions alongside the literary and visual potency of Broodthaers, remaining ever relevant in the present day.

 

Collector’s Digest

 

• Born in the parish of St. Gilles in Brussels in 1924, Broodthaers worked as a writer, poet and journalist as well as an artist. Transitioning to a career in art at the age of forty without any formal training, Broodthaers established himself as a leading member of the European conceptual art movement over his brief yet prolific career. 
• Subject to significant exhibitions during and beyond his lifetime, Broodthaers work is in international public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Ghent, amongst others. 

 

 

ⁱ Marcel Broodthaers, quoted in Wilfried Dickhoff, ‘The Conquest of Space. The poetic-artistic situations of Marcel Broodthaers’, Marcel Broodthaers, London, 2013, p. 12.
ⁱⁱ René Magritte, quoted in Michael Compton, ‘In Praise of the Subject’, Marcel Broodthaers, exh. cat., Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1989, p. 17.
ⁱⁱⁱ Marcel Broodthaers, quoted in Wilfried Dickhoff, ‘The Conquest of Space. The poetic-artistic situations of Marcel Broodthaers’, Marcel Broodthaers, London, 2013, p. 13.