A two-day conference presented on the occasion of the Marcel Broodthaers’ Centenary. Organized by Professor of Visual Arts Joe Scanlan.
About Marcel Broodthaers
Marcel Broodthaers (Belgian, 1924–1976) worked primarily as a poet until the age of 40, when he turned to the visual arts. Over the next 12 years, his work retained a poetic quality and a sense of humor by inventing ways to give material form to language while working across mediums—poetry, sculpture, painting, artist’s books, printmaking, and film. From 1968 to 1972, he operated the Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles), a traveling museum dedicated not to his work as an artist but to the role of the institution itself and the function of art in society.
For all the banal and erudite references used by Broodthaers—from mussel shells and industrial signage to Aesop and Mallarmé—America is the one oft-cited reference in his writing and artworks that he never experienced firsthand. This lack of empirical knowledge lends an element of fantasy to Broodthaers’ idea of “America,” and these speculations are the likely reason why it remains one of the least examined aspects of his work. Whatever the case may be, Broodthaers must have based his idea of America on something. This conference promises to critically examine, both explicitly and obliquely, new theories on what that something might be.
Symposium Admission
All symposium events are free and open to the public. No registration or tickets required.
All in-person sessions will also be live-streamed. More info and links TBA.
Symposium Schedule: October 9
- 4:30-6:00 PM: Lectures (East Pyne)
- 6-7:30 PM: Reception (Upper Hyphen, East Pyne)
Lecture 1: Carolin Meister, “Marcel Broodthaers: Painting, Entertainment, and an Unknown Film”
Carolin Meister is a Princeton Whitney J. Oates Short-Term Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Lewis Center for the Arts for 2024-25. She holds the Chair of Art History at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe, where she served as Vice Rector from 2017 to 2023.
Symposium Schedule: October 10
- 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Lecture (Chancellor Green Rotunda)
- 12:00-1:00 PM: Welcome Lunch (Upper Hyphen, East Pyne)
- 1:30-3:00 PM: Roundtable (010 East Pyne)
- 3:30-5:30 PM: Keynote Addresses (010 East Pyne)
Lecture 1: Hannah Bruckmüller, “Marcel Broodthaers’ Father Figures”
Respondent: Simon Wu
Dr. Hannah Bruckmüller is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the New Design University, St. Pölten, Austria. Her research focuses on intersections between art, literature, and publication practices, combining underrepresented archival material, critical historiography, and feminist thought.
Simon Wu ‘17 is a writer and a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University. His first book, a collection of essays titled Dancing on My Own, was published in June.
Marcel Broodthaers and America: A Roundtable
With Sam Shapiro, Margaux van Uytvanck, and Stefaan Vervoort
Moderated by Joe Scanlan
Sam Shapiro, “An Obedient Material”: Marcel Broodthaers and American Art Museums in the 1970s”
Sam Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and a curatorial research assistant at the Princeton University Art Museum. His dissertation is titled “Confrontation and Collaboration: American Artists and Museums in the 1970s.”
Margaux Van Uytvank, “Marcel Broodthaers and Jean Toche: Notes on a Transatlantic Friendship”
Margaux Van Uytvanck holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her doctoral research focused on Marcel Broodthaers’ professional networks in Brussels. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at New York University and a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation.
Stefaan Vervoort, “Marcel Broodthaers, Journalist”
Stefaan Vervoort is a Postdoctoral Researcher and founding member of the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium Since 1945) at the Department of Art History, Musicology and Theatre Studies, Ghent University. He is curator of the research exhibition Marcel Broodthaers – The Architect is Absent at CIVA, Brussels (2025) and author of the synonymous book forthcoming from Sternberg Press.
Keynote Addresses
Trevor Stark,, “The Object of a Prohibition”: Marcel Broodthaers at the Poem’s End”
Trevor Stark is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Calgary. He is the author of Total Expansion of the Letter: Avant-Garde Art and Language After Mallarmé (MIT Press/October Books, 2020).
Raf Wollaert, “Voyage extraordinaire: Marcel Broodthaers in New York”
Raf Wollaert is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Antwerp and a Fulbright scholar. Since 2019, he has coedited the LP edition Marcel Broodthaers: La Lumière Manifeste and organized an international symposium on Broodthaers’ films. Marcel Broodthaers and Film: A Second on Eternity, a collection of essays co-edited with Stephen Jacobs, will be released later this fall.
Symposium Sponsors
Marcel Broodthaers and America is the centerpiece of the fall course VIS 425 Haptic Lab, taught by Professor Joe Scanlan in the Visual Arts Program in the Lewis Center. The Haptic Lab has been made possible by the 250th Anniversary Fund for Innovative Undergraduate Education.
Marcel Broodthaers and America has been organized in collaboration with the Broodthaers Society of America, New York, and Kunst in België sinds 1945 (Art in Belgium since 1945), a multidisciplinary research group at Ghent University. It is made possible with generous support from the Humanities Council, the University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Department of Art & Archaeology, and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.
Directions
Get directions to East Pyne Hall and Chancellor Green (adjacent spaces) on the Princeton University campus.
Accessibility
East Pyne and Chancellor Green are accessible venues. Chancellor Green is accessible via an elevator in the lobby of East Pyne Hall. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
