Marcel Broodthaers 76956 — Marcel Broodthaers - le salon noir 1966

Ronny van de Velde, 2014, 1e druk, Softcover, 22, A work dedicated to Broodthaers’ installation ‘Le Salon Noir’ from 1966, which consisted of a room draped in black, an inscribed coffin with canopic-like jars containing the printed profile of the poet Marcel Lecomte neatly arranged on shelves, a table with a bell jar containing tableware wrapped in silver foil, and Broodthaers’s dog-eared visiting card; as a whole, the work challenges our conception of death and the silence and taboos surrounding it, death is not hidden away behind euphemism but proudly displayed, the morbidity of such an act is softened by the ritualistic, almost occult touches and details: grave goods and other careful preparations that seem to suggest a belief that the spirit of the deceased will travel to another, better world, the presence of the artist’s card seems to suggest that it is Marcel Broodthaers who will act as psychopomp, an Anubis to guide the soul on its final journey to the afterlife; a short text in Dutch and French by Marcel Piqueray accompanied by several b/w photographs of the artist and the installation pieces, 500 ex., Goed