June 13, 2012–January 7, 2013
Marcel Broodthaers began his career as a poet, making his first artwork—a sculpture consisting of his unsold books of poetry—at the age of 40. Between 1964 and his death in 1976, Broodthaers became one of the most influential artists of his time, realizing an impressive range of work, from sculptures and artist’s books to his own fictional modern art museum, which he founded in 1968. Broodthaers’s varied artistic practice is characterized by a deep concern with language and linguistic conventions, playing with ideas of authorship and uniqueness while revealing the cultural stereotypes and symbols of national identity embedded in everyday forms of communication. In 2011 the Museum acquired the Daled Collection—a renowned group of more than 220 works of American and European Conceptual art collected between 1966 and 1978—transforming MoMA’s holdings of art from this period. Herman and Nicole Daled were important early collectors of work by Broodthaers, and he, in turn, introduced the couple to an extensive network of artists that they continued to follow and support. A selection of key works by Broodthaers, drawn from the 62 works acquired through the Daled Collection, is shown here.
