CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/27/2016

Marcel Broodthaers

In 1974, on the eve of one of his last major exhibitions—at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford—and just one year prior to his death, Belgian surrealist-conceptualist-minimalist artist, photographer, filmmaker, debunker of museums and "defrocked poet," Marcel Broodthaers proclaimed, "I discovered nothing, not even America. I chose to consider Art as useless labor, apolitical and of little moral significance. Urged on by some base inspiration, I confess I would experience a kind of pleasure at being proved wrong. A guilty pleasure, since it would be at the expense of the victims, those who thought I was right." 'Shelf (The D is bigger than the T)" (1966-68) is reproduced from MoMA's landmark survey, published to accompany the exhibition on view through May.