Marcel Broodthaers

Marcel Broodthaers is the artist’s first museum retrospective in New York. Bringing together some 200 works in multiple mediums, the exhibition explores the artist’s critical if under-recognized place in the history of 20th-century art.

Marcel Broodthaers’s (Belgian, 1924–1976) output across mediums placed him at the center of international activity during the transformative decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Setting a precedent for what we call installation art today, his work has had a profound influence on a broad range of contemporary artists, and he remains vitally relevant to cultural discourse at large. Throughout his career, from early objects variously made of mussels, eggshells, and books of his own poetry; to his most ambitious project, the Musée d’Art Moderne. Département des Aigles; and the retrospective Décors, made at the end of his life, Broodthaers occupied a unique position, often operating as both innovator and commentator. This exhibition considers the artist with these lasting contributions in mind.