Broodthaers was a member of the Belgian communist party for a few years in the late ’40s and early ’50s, then left it. In 1968 he participated in an artists’ sit-in in the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts, the museum where he had once conducted docent’s tours and where he would later give a major exhibition of his own work; he left, however, before the occupation was over, rendering his response to it ambiguous. Clearly he was touched and inspired by the events of 1968 (as were numerous Western intellectuals of various political stances). Finally, he took a course in Baudelaire from Lucien Goldmann, a follower of Georg Lukács, in the winter of 1969–70.

It is questionable whether these connections with Marxism—distinct connections, to varying degrees, but hardly pervading the artist’s life—should control interpretation of the oeuvre. Broodthaers did not express himself verbally as a Marxist, at least in his statements as a visual artist. He does not seem to have read Marxist authors widely, and, with the exception of Goldmann, professed a lack of interest in them.

Nevertheless, Buchloh and others read politics as the endeavor’s core. Indeed Crimp, in the Walker catalogue, seems to believe that his readings according to Benjamin are known to have been those intended by Broodthaers. Of course one can apply a Marxist analysis to anything at all; the question in this case is whether that reading makes or implies undue claims about the artist’s intentions.

Gritli Brüll, 2025