Broodthaers Society of America
An Interview with Udo Bekkers
I was surprised to unearth this interview—I thought I knew all of MB's printed exchanges—and doubly surprised in that it is not included in Gloria Moure's Marcel Broodthaers, Collected Writings (2013).

In the preamble Udo Bekkers, a Flemish public radio journalist, pretty much begins by describing Broodthaers as a hectoring art world pest.

Wittingly or not, Bekkers approach is quite revealing because Broodthaers, always one to go against type, eschews his usual elliptical manner and speaks rather plainly about his development and influences, especially in regard to the Musee des Aigles and the "prison" of being a successful artist.

It shows that the sardonic, persevering, endgame merchandising that so deliciously pervades his text "To be a straight thinker, or not to be. To be blind" is already simmering in his brain.


Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1971. 48 pages. English.