Marcel Broodthaers was born and died on January 28 (1924-1976), and since a few years the Broodthaers scholar Michal B. Ron has been organising memorial birthday parties. In January, I published her What Do You Do For Love? pamphlet, echoing a question that Broodthaers asked in 1969: “In a world of mechanisms, a world of wars, a world of technology […] in this condition of this strange world – What to do to make love?”
This time, on Friday, July 28, I joined Michal B. Ron and her daughter for a "M.B. halb Memorial Birthday Party". We went to the library of the Freie Universität in Dahlem, in the outskirts of Berlin. There, Michal's 2017 doctoral thesis on Broodthaers with the title Marcel Broodthaers, Fifty Years After, or History in The Room of The Parrot is stored as a microfiche. Microfiche is an old medium, invented in the 19th century, but it turns out that it is the best way to archive. It lasts for at least 500 years and you can just read it with a magnifying glass.
If you have ever visited a German library or archive, you know that the first answer is always "no". Also the author of the microfiche is apparently not really allowed to have access. It is only for possible readers of the future. Yet, in the end, we did get to see the microfiche, one that hadn't been sent out yet to other libraries. It's a simple envelope with a few small transparent sheets.
It was a perfect day for the party - it rained, typical Belgian weather (check out Broodthaer's' video La Pluie) - and we were in the perfect setting: there is a wintergarden with palm trees in the large reading room of the university library. How more Broodthaers can you get?
Afterwards, we went for drinks at the French bakery Aux Delices Normands at the corner of the Garystraße, where we had a tarte au citron with meringue on top. Michal had baked some parrot muffins. Steinecke Bakery sells them, but you can also buy a package at the supermarket with ready flour, three colours (green-yellow-red) to be added, and some glittery stuff to finish them off.
Happy half birthday, Marcel Broodthaers!
