A LECTURE ENGULFED : MUSSEL, MUSE, MEDUSA
Jean-Philippe Antoine, Leif Elggren
Centre Pompidou, Paris
PETITE SALLE
MONDAY 26 OCTOBER, 7 PM
“(Moule, muse, méduse)2” pays tribute to Marcel Broodthaers (1921-1976) on the 33rd anniversary of his death. Jean-Philippe Antoine and Leif Elggren start out from the gesture whereby, in 1964, the Belgian poet sold out to the plastic arts by turning into a Pop artist, and reinstated the Mallarméan genealogy: the Throw of the Dice inventing “the modern and contemporary space of art”, versus a kitsch glorification of the song hailing from Romanticism. But this exercise in demystification through space, relentlessly subject to the bourgeois commodification that it was meant to counter, continues to be inhabited by invisible Muses and Sirens. Broodthaers strove to reinstate their presence, through novel “literary” methods borrowed from Nerval, Baudelaire, Banville, Mallarmé, and Heine. Thus comes forth, in the form of exhibitions and publications, the pre-history in the 19th century of the society of the spectacle, its survival, and its effectiveness in our present day, and lastly the modules of resistance which nestle therein. Started in the initially stable form of a lecture, “(Mussel, muse, medusa)2” will end as a spiritual concert.
JEAN-PHILIPPE ANTOINE
Lives and works in Paris (France)
LEIF ELGGREN
Lives and works in Stockholm (Sweden)