From the special collection: Phillips is auctioning company poems by Marcel Broodthaers

2024-09-21 13:39:38

Herbig couple’s collection of modern art is legendary. Until it was poured up and auctioned off. Some works by the novelist Marcel Broodthaers are in the family’s possession. Now they are on the market.

The Cologne collection of Jost and Barbara Herbig is considered one of Germany’s most important private collections with post-war modern art. It is even “the second most important in the European exhibition world,” says former gallery owner Franz Dahlem, who played a key role in its creation with colleagues such as René Block, Michael Werner and Heiner Friedrich.

Here’s how to do it “Cafe Germany”a recording project by Frankfurt Städel about the first art event in the Federal Republic. But after Jost Herbig’s early death in 1994, large parts of the collection went under the hammer four years later at Christie’s auction house in New York. However, it will not dissolve completely.

A few days ago, the London auction house Phillips announced that it had acquired “a selection of works” by Marcel Broodthaers from the collection. In his novel work, the Belgian artist allows references and symbols to circulate between complex poetry and installation, surrealism and conceptual art. In doing so, he left a lasting impression on artists and art critics. But also with Herbigs.

They met Broodthaers in 1970, became friends with him and bought many of his works. They said they are not yet in Christie’s auction, but are in family ownership or loaned to museums. The first three works will be auctioned on October 10th and 11th, 2024.

Among them is a nine-part collection of printed canvases from the “Die Welt” series from 1973 (estimate: 150,000 to 200,000 euros). The two-part painting “Académie I” and “Académie II” (30,000 to 50,000 euros) from 1968 is more expensive.

With the help of industrial craftsmen, Broodthaers made vacuum-sealed plastic signs that were created that year. Instead of spreading advertising messages, he used the medium for so-called “Poèmes industriels” with secret words. With written pictures that refer to his life’s dream, namely to create a museum of the history of modern art.

At least one of Broodthaers panels from seven copies made it to the actual Museum of Modern Art in New York. In recent years, “industrial poets” have also been featured in the North Rhine-Westphalia art gallery K21 (2017) and in the Marcel Broodthaers retrospective at the Fridericianum Kassel (2015).