This “Press Pack Bootleg” contains copies of the original German-language press material from the Section des Figures (Figure Section) iteration of Marcel Broodthaers’ fictitious Musée D'Art Moderne, Departement des Aigles (Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles), installed at the Städtischen Kunsthalle Düsseldorf from May to July of 1972.

Broodthaers’ first Musée… exhibition was mounted in 1968 from his house and studio in Brussels, where it served as an institutional critique of the cultural politics of the museum. Broodthaers would go on to stage many different “sections” of the museum over the next four years in various venues, all of them parodic. The Düsseldorf section, the “Section des Figures,” was the largest instantiation of the Musée; it was subtitled “Der Adler vom Oligozän bis heute” (The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present) and was literally an extensive iconology of the eagle, in exhibition form. Over 500 objects were presented, some being highly valuable artworks and others being trivial artifacts or readymades.

The items here, 6 in all, consist of a transcript of Broodthaers, junior curator Jürgen Harten, and curator Katharina Schmidt in conversation; a press release; Broodthaers’ CV (with bibliography and exhibition history); a conversation between Marcel Duchamp and Pierre Cabanne (from Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp); a page by René Magritte reprinted from La révolution surréaliste (1929); and notes on eagles prepared by Broodthaers including an excerpt from Georges Bataille and passages from authors writing on physiology, vexilology, and zoology.