The Films of Marcel Broodthaers: Between Art History and Film Studies

The Belgian poet and conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) made over 50 films in documentary, narrative, and experimental styles. This event is a rare opportunity to screen his 35mm films, and to explore their formal and political audacity as “reading exercises.” While Broodthaers’ films and conceptual works openly engage the history of French literary practice, they also critically examine France’s predominance within art and political history. In his visual, literary, and conceptual exploration of poetry and the French language, the cinema and its history occupy a central place. Broodthaers transforms the film form—and the cinema—into powerful tools for the re-examination of art, language, and history as interdependent meaning-making operations.

Keynote address by Benjamin Buchloh (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University). Round-table participants include: Bruce Jenkins (SAIC); Anne Rorimer (independent scholar, Chicago); and Rachel Haidu (University of Rochester.

Symposium Schedule:

11am    Welcome address, Keynote Address
12pm    Screening I
1pm      Lunch
2pm      Screening II
3pm      Round-table discussion

Please call the Film Studies Center at 773.702.8596 to register for the symposium.