"All is eggs," he explained. "The world is an egg. The world is born of the great yolk, the sun. And the belly of a wave is white. A heap of eggshells, the moon. "
Broodthaers' early sculptures used a lot of found items. Unlike many of his American counterparts, who favoured sleek commercial wares and mass-produced commodities, the Belgian artist chose more humble, domestic objects.
This artwork dates Marcel Broodthaer's transition from poetry to the visual arts following years of dedication to poetry. He considered the position of artworks as products in this new setting. Tableau et tabouret avec oeufs (Painting and Stool with Eggs) anticipated the Belgian artist's beliefs on creative idea, in which he worked on from 1968 onwards, dealing with topics like the temporality of artworks and their ephemerality while emphasising the processual aspect and broadening the standard visual language by integrating objects drawn from the daily.
On the other hand, he reintroduces some Dada and Surrealist themes like randomness, chance, and accident, adding new components to the de-mystification of the artist figure that was going place at the time in European art. It was built using diverse parts from reality (boxes of eggs – which have now vanished – and a stool), according to the artist Raphael Opstaele's description of the work's origins while it broke apart due to the impacts of time and its inherent fragility.
Broodthaers monumentalized the work and put the function of the locations where it was to be presented and the individuals responsible for its safety to the test by reacting equally to both the conventional creative process and the permanence and stability of the artwork. His creative discourse is linked to the idea that cultural institutions must be always aware of disputes and circumstances - that arise in the actual world.
"Everything is eggs. The world is egg. The world was born of the great yolk, the sun. Our mother, the moon, is scaly. And the belly of a wave of water is white. The egg’s crushed scales, the moon. Egg dust, the stars. Everything, dead eggs. And, lost, the poets. Despite the guards, this world, sun, this moon, stars of entire trains. Emptiness. Of empty eggs."
Lisa Jack, Katherine LK | 09:05 AM Mon, May 23, 2022 (PST) Los Angeles, CA Artpendix Press
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