Broodthaers Society of America

The Broodthaers Society of America was founded to foster a wider investigation of Marcel Broodthaers in the context of American culture. We love the work of Marcel Broodthaers, but we’re not interested in suffocating him with reverence. Rather, we continually joust with it, bore out its cylinders, get it wrong. When he paints the French word for “mussels” we read “muscles” and imagine connections between the wily Belgian artist and well-oiled, Hollywood physique magazines. We look at work from the standpoint of race and racism, subjects that Broodthaers certainly alluded to (and privileged from) in a country like Belgium but, to our knowledge, have never been addressed. We frequently hit the reset button. We try to pick up where he left off, but we do so from the comfort of space age Warren Platner sofas and chrome etageres. We proceed blindly as if forty years of art, commerce, and scholarship had not transpired after his death. We look at Broodthaers’ work now, in the present, and going forward. If there are any aspects of his work that are still capable of being in play, then it is our responsibility to discover them and reshape them. Come join us.